Identify a recent incident (within last six months) and discuss illegal, unethic

Question

Identify a recent incident (within last six months) and discuss illegal, unethical, and socially responsible business actions in the current news. Include a link to the news article in your discussion post.

Note: If we read the Wall Street Journal or maybe Barrons Business Review we will find daily reports of corporate activities. True, the media (TV and Internet sources) also tend to perpetuate any business transaction not considered ethical or properly aligned with current leadership. Let’s keep our examples to true business reports and avoid the political side which currently dominates the media.

Explanation / Answer

Equifax data breach scandal:

Company Background: Equifax is a consumer credit reporting agency with head quarters in Georgia, USA. It was founded in 1899 and currently is one of the 3 largest consumer credit reporting agencies in USA and Canada. Equifax sells Consumer credit report to various business-like retail, insurance, banks etc.

Incident:

On September 7, 2017 Equifax came out with the announcement that there was security breach in its system leading to hacker stealing 144 million US customers personal data. According to Rick Smith, CEO of Equifax attack started some where in the middle of May which was not noticed by Equifax until July 29. Information gained by hackers in the breach include Customer first and last name, birthday, address and in some instance driving licenses.

Unethical and illegal practice in the case:

It was revealed to the public that executives of Equifax sold $1.8 Million of dollar worth of share after Equifax discovered breach but a month before going public. This amounted to insider trading were company employees sold share before bad news was made public. The company denied wrong doing. The company in its statement said that none of its senior executives knew about data breach when they sold shares.

This is highly unethical and illegal practice followed by Equifax. The company also famously rewarded its employees for collecting negative information about customers. This shows how Equifax practiced all wrong things just for its own benefits. Equifax even gave Congressman Barry Loudermilk thousands of dollar to introduce a bill in US house to reduce consumer protection in relation to credit rating agencies.

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