10 Nov Yahoo, Equifax Fail to Give Answers in Senate Hacking Inquiry
Lawmakers were left frustrated last Wednesday as former Yahoo CEO and Equifax execs failed to answer some of the most basic questions regarding their data breaches.
Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer could not give a straight answer to the committee when asked how the company’s database of three billion users got hacked in 2013. Mayer instead pointed at Russian hackers for a separate hacking incident in 2014, and offered an apology to their users.
Similarly, Equifax ex-boss Richard Smith could not tell the senators who was behind the company’s data breach that had affected the private information of around 145 million Americans.
In frustration, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) called Equifax’s failure to address its system’s vulnerabilities as “a clear definition of gross negligence”. Meanwhile, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) called Mayer’s actions “unfathomable”, referring to her exit of Yahoo with a $260 million payout.
Source: ZDNet