Human error, specifically one human’s error, is why 145 million of us are worrying about what crooks will do with the data that was stolen earlier this year in a data breach of Equifax.
Richard Smith, the credit reporting bureau’s former CEO, in testimony before House Energy and Commerce Committee today blamed the initial failure to patch a known security risk on a specific individual. He did not name that person.
“The human error was that the individual who’s responsible for communicating in the organization to apply the patch, did not,” Smith told the Congressional panel.
The hearing came on the heels of news that the Equifax breach of personal information, ranging from bank and credit card account numbers to Social Security numbers, affected 2.5 million more Americans than first believed. That pushes those of us whose financial details are at potential risk to more than 145 million.