National Security and Foreign Affairs

Nearly half the US woke up Friday to find out their Social Security number might have been stolen, thanks to hackers who breached the database of a top credit monitoring service.

New York state's attorney general will probe the huge data breach at Equifax, one of the U.S.'s three major credit reporting agencies, to determine when and how the company learned of the attack and to find out whether customer information has been offered for sale on the black market, a source familiar with the investigation tells Newsweek.

(Reuters) - Equifax Inc (EFX.N) faced a storm of criticism on Friday over a hack that may have compromised personal data for some 143 million Americans, with customers clamoring for answers and cyber security experts questioning the response to the massive breach.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) announced Friday that the panel will hold a hearing on the Equifax breach that exposed the personal data of more than 140 million customers.

Hensarling called the breach "a very serious and very troubling situation" and said the committee had already begun preparing.

The sale of nearly $2 million in corporate stock by high-level Equifax executives shortly after the company learned of a major data breach has sparked public outrage that could turn into another hurdle for the credit rating agency.

Statements from members of Congress suggest Equifax will soon be dealing with a public flogging in Washington in addition to its falling share price and outraged consumers, following the data breach that potentially affected millions of customers.

Perhaps it should be little surprise to that a data breach that could well affect half of the American population would escalate quickly.