News Releases

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) – chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security – today questioned current and former executives from Equifax, Inc. and Yahoo!, Inc. about their cybersecurity practices in the wake of major data breaches during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing entitled, “Protecting Consumers in the Era of Major Data Breaches.”

“Businesses entrusted with consumers’ sensitive personal and financial information have an obligation to do all that they can to protect it, no matter the cost,” said Sen. Moran. “Today’s hearing provided an opportunity to address how these breaches occurred and the actions these businesses have vowed to take to prevent a breach of this scope from happening again. As cyber criminals becomes more advanced, companies, too, must adapt to protect American consumers.”

Witnesses included Equifax Interim Chief Executive Officer Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr., Former Equifax Chief Executive Officer Richard Smith, Former Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer, Verizon (parent company of Yahoo! since June 2017) Deputy General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer Karen Zacharia and Entrust Datacard Corp. President and Chief Executive Officer Todd Wilkinson.

Background:

  • Yahoo! suffered data breaches in 2013 and 2014 and announced just last month that these breaches affected all three billion of its user accounts – the largest breaches in history.
  • Equifax suffered a data breach earlier this year that affected approximately 145 million individuals, including private personal and financial information.

Click here to watch today’s hearing.

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