Equifax CEO blames hack on one employee

In what has been described as one of the biggest hacks in US history, the Equifax data breach, is, according to the former CEO, the fault of one sole employee.

During a Congress appearance, Equifax’s former CEO, Richard Smith, who retired last week, said that an IT technician’s failure to install a patch to its system resulted in the breach, which exposed at least 145.5 million people’s personal details, including credit card numbers, social security details, addresses, emails, mother’s maiden names – The Guardian reports.

The credit company said that a vulnerability in Apache’s Struts system, the software provider for Equifax, could have been eliminated with a patch, which the provider supplied back in March.

Smith told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the procedure for new patches requires a technician to install it and then scan the system for any remaining vulnerabilities, but this failed to happen.