The recently departed CEO of Equifax faces a second round of tough questions on Wednesday from U.S. politicians eager to hear about what he and company executives knew about the breach — and when.
Richard Smith will appear in front of the Senate banking committee and then later the Senate judiciary committee to face a new group of American lawmakers.
Smith resigned from the company he led for more than a decade last month after it came to light that the company had experienced a hack earlier this summer, one in which criminals made off with personal information about more than 145 million Americans.
Smith appeared before the House energy and commerce ommittee on Tuesday, where he expressed his remorse and desire to made things right, but had frequent testy exchanges with lawmakers.
Smith’s testimony is set to kick off at 10 a.m. ET.
Deal to provide ID services to IRS
It comes on a day that his former company has secured a no-bid contract from the Internal Revenue Service to provide the tax agency with with taxpayer and personal identity verification services. The contract stated that Equifax was the only company capable of providing these services to the IRS, and it was deemed a “critical” service that couldn’t lapse.
Democratic representative Earl Blumenauer or Oregon said in a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen that he initially thought his staff was sharing a copy of the Onion, a humour newspaper, until he realized the story about the contract was true.
“I am shocked that the IRS would contract with this firm for activities that they are clearly unfit to carry out,” Blumenauer wrote.
The contract, which was not opened to public tender, is worth $7.5 million US.