Ex-Yahoo chief, Equifax execs to testify before Senate panel

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is slated to join current and former CEOs of Equifax in testifying before a key Senate panel later this month on cybersecurity breaches.

The individuals will appear before the Senate Commerce Committee to answer questions about massive data breaches that hit both firms, the committee revealed Wednesday.

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“Massive data breaches have touched the vast majority of American consumers,” Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a statement. “When such breaches occur, urgent action is necessary to protect sensitive personal information.”

“This hearing will give the public the opportunity to hear from those in charge, at the time major breaches occurred and during the subsequent response efforts, at two large companies who lost personal consumer data to nefarious actors,” Thune said.

Mayer, who stepped down as CEO of Yahoo when Verizon acquired the company’s core internet assets earlier this year, will face questions about a 2013 data breach that Yahoo revealed in early October had affected all of its 3 billion accounts.

That number was triple the number the company said were impacted when it first revealed the breach about a year ago.

Yahoo said last December that hackers accessed customers’ names, emails, addresses, birth dates and phone numbers. 

The Senate panel will also hear from Richard Smith, the former Equifax CEO who stepped down from his position amid backlash after the credit reporting firm in September acknowledged a breach in which more than 145 million Americans had their personal data stolen, including Social Security numbers.

Smith has already made the rounds on Capitol Hill, facing a grilling from lawmakers in both the House and Senate.

Paulino Barros, the interim CEO of Equifax whom Smith continues to advise, is also slated to appear at the hearing.