Should private companies be drafted in the cyber war?

Moody’s recently announced a rating outlook downgrade for Equifax, linking the decision to spiraling costs from the massive 2017 data breach that topped $690 million last quarter and are anticipated to remain high as the company continues investing in cybersecurity infrastructure. In today’s modern cyber threat environment, the impacts of a fumbled incident response are beginning to manifest themselves in new, costly ways.

This decision follows a December 2018 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform that found Equifax “failed to implement an adequate security program to protect this sensitive data. As a result, Equifax allowed one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history.”