Equifax, Post Breach: Why the CEO Survived Just 19 Days

Nineteen days.

That's how long the Equifax CEO survived after his video announcement of the company's mega breach.

• Day 1: Chairman and CEO Rick Smith: "Equifax will not be defined by this incident, but rather, how we respond." 
• Day 19: Chairman and CEO Rick Smith: "At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward."

What transpired between between day 1 and day 19 is too much to capture in a single article. But lowlights include a social media firestorm, lawsuits of all kinds, and a number of other mistakes, including some Equifax missteps worth learning from.

Shawn Tuma is a cybersecurity attorney at Scheef & Stone, L.L.P., where he regularly helps companies with incident response after a breach or attack. The day after the Equifax breach was announced, he told SecureWorld, "It's not about what you do right, as much as what you do not do wrong."

Apparently, there were too many things in the "wrong" column for the company's CEO.

Equifax drop in value after breach announcement

One thing that is certainly in the wrong column? The company's valuation. At the close of business on September 25, 2017, Equifax shares were down 26% since the breach was announced. When any company loses a quarter of its value in 19 days under your watch, well, that typically limits your tenure as the top executive.

The company's CEO is the third executive to suddenly "retire." You can read the Equifax statement on new leadership here.

The company's CIO and CSO were the first two to go. Their "retirements" were announced on September 15. So those two executives only survived the breach announcement for eight days.

Many questions remain - What is next in Equifax breach?

So is the leadership re-configuring complete? Will the now former Chairman and CEO appear before the U.S. Senate Banking committee next month as he was scheduled to do? And is the CEO's retiring enough to make everyone believe Equifax is taking the breach seriously?

There is one thing we're fairly certain about. CNBC's Jim Cramer must now be happy because he called for the Equifax CEO to lose his job and "spend more time with his family" weeks ago. Here's the video of the Mad Money argument for why the Equifax CEO had to go.

Apparently, the Equifax board now agrees with Jim Cramer. 

Now there is something you don't see every day.

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