Forbes: Congressmen Call For A Senate Inquiry Into The Huge Equifax Hack

Perhaps it should be little surprise to that a data breach that could well affect half of the American population would escalate quickly. Congressmen are now calling for an official inquiry into the huge Equifax leak, while a class action lawsuit against the company has been filed less than 24 hours after the credit bureau announced a hack that resulted in personal data on as many as 143 million U.S. citizens being compromised.

Senator Ron Wyden or Oregon said in an emailed statement to Forbes: "The Senate should absolutely thoroughly investigate any issue affecting the finances and security of 143 million Americans - that's a no brainer. I've said for years that companies need to be held accountable for data breaches, which is why I've supported Senator Leahy's legislation to require strong protections for consumer privacy."

Representative Ted Lieu of California, meanwhile, has sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlate and ranking member John Conyers asking them to investigate how the Equifax breach occurred. Noting federal government employees could be affected, Lieu said it was disturbing the company took six weeks from learning about the breach to disclosing it Thursday.

Class action lands

A class action lawsuit has also been filed in Wyden's state, claiming "Equifax negligently failed to maintain adequate technological safeguards" to protect the plaintiffs' personal data. "Equifax could have and should have substantially increased the amount of money it spent to protect against cyber-attacks but chose not to," the complaint read. "The amount in controversy exceeds $68.6 billion exclusive of penalties."

As Forbes reported Friday, the company has suffered repeated data breaches over the last decade, and security researchers have found various possible vulnerabilities in Equifax's online infrastructure.

Equifax said it had nothing to add beyond its press release from Thursday.