Case Study
Equifax Stock Plummets After Massive, Mishandled Data Breach
Equifax was hammered on multiple fronts after its lax security practices led to a “hacking nightmare” made worse by its badly bungled response. The massive data breach, which revealed the sensitive personal information of 143 million American consumers, was caused by Equifax’s failure to patch a known security flaw for over two months. Equifax compounded its problems after the breach with numerous steps that left consumers confused and “infuriated”. The company initially charged consumers for credit freeze services, accidentally sent breach victims to a (fortunately fake) phishing site, and implemented an “horror show of a website” incapable of handling the massive volume of questions and concerns from breach victims. As a result, Equifax’s shares fell more than 30 percent, its CTO, CISO, and CEO all ‘resigned’ from their positions, and it was hit with Congressional inquiries and a flood of lawsuits including the largest class-action suit in history.