Equifax Inc. (EFX) Insiders Accused of Insider Trading After Massive Data Breach
Equifax Inc. (EFX) collects and aggregates information on over 800 million individual consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide. Equifax repeatedly touted its commitment to security and safeguarding consumer data in numerous public filings. However, despite multiple security breaches, Equifax failed to address the vulnerabilities of its security system. As a result, Equifax was susceptible to a cybersecurity breach by hackers. The worst of these security breaches occurred around May 2017. During that time, hackers were able to access the reams of personal data that Equifax possessed because of vulnerability in the Company’s Apache Struts web server software. Security researchers at Cisco Systems Inc. publicly warned of the flaw in Apache Struts on March 10, 2017, and a patch was issued by the Apache Software Foundation to fix it. However, Equifax did not apply the patch. As a result, over 143 million individuals had their personal data compromised. To make matters worse, three executives sold shares of their personally held Equifax stock after the breach was discovered, but before it was disclosed to the public. Together, the three executives collected almost $2 million from the sales.
Protect your