Breach deemed one of the worst-ever

Equifax said on Friday that two executives entrusted with watching over its computers were retiring, their departures coming after its maligned handling of a major hack at the credit reporting agency.

The Equifax chief information officer and head of security will retire, effective immediately, as “part of the company’s ongoing review of the cybersecurity incident” that resulted in personal data of 143 million U.S. customers being stolen by hackers. An as yet unspecified number of Canadian and British customers may have also been affected by the hack at Equifax, one of the three major credit bureaus that collect consumer financial data.

The breach is considered one of the worst-ever because of the nature of data collected: bank and social security numbers and personal information of value to hackers and others.