They're very much more likely to face consequences from the stock sales than they are to face any sort of 'negligence' charges due to their security practices, sadly. If Toyota got acquitted in their 'unintended acceleration' criminal negligence case, no one can ever be penalized for it. Toyota was exceptionally egregious in their negligence, even worse than most companies are as part of their daily practices. Their developers didn't even have access to a bug tracker. So whatever Equifax was doing, the courts will just look at it and do what they always do, say 'huh... computers, huh? NOBODY knows how they work. Acquitted!'
Maybe because I don't work at a "pure" tech company, but a few coworkers have commented that they had to sign up for credit protection with sort of a shrug attitude. They don't realize how negligent Equifax was here or what the impact is going to be for the rest of their lives.
Congress and the various regulatory bodies will take their pound of flesh. The CEO/Chairman will keep his job. Maybe MAYBE the President of USIS and/or the CFO go to jail for insider trading.
On the surface the security folks don't have great credentials...I kind of wonder if the CEO chose his subordinates specifically to take the hit in a data breach situation like this.
> I kind of wonder if the CEO chose his subordinates specifically to take the hit in a data breach situation like this.
^ This! They sure have shuffled the CIO and CISO out of the conversation quickly.
I'm sure you can be a perfectly competent CISO with two degrees in music composition and ten years experience, but they sure don't want us to hear about it if we haven't already.
I've been through an acquisition before and promoted and put into the position of "potential fall guy" where my name went on official documents, and there wasn't a budget for more people or things we needed. If we lost medical records to hackers, I'd expect to answer some uncomfortable questions!
But they are actively erasing information about these people from the internet, when lots of us want to have a closer look.
What happened to failure as a learning experience? Retired effective immediately? Come on, those two people will never make that same mistake again!
