NEW YORK (AP) — Equifax announced late Friday that its chief information officer and chief security officer would leave the company immediately, following the enormous breach of 143 million Americans' personal information. Susan Mauldin’s LinkedIn page was made private and her last name replaced with “M.” 
 
 Equifax “Chief Security Officer” Susan Mauldin has a bachelor’s degree and a master of fine arts degree in music composition from the University of Georgia. ... Security can be learned.” 
 
 But she also said she focuses college recruitment, understandably, on “universities that have programs in security, cyber security, or IT programs with security specialties.” She did not mention music composition. The company did not say why the software used in the online-dispute portal hadn't been patched earlier, although it claimed that its security organization was "aware" of the software flaw in March, and that it "took efforts" to locate and fix "any vulnerable systems in the company's IT infrastructure." Over the years, U.S. authorities have acknowledged the problem. Equifax is also facing several inquiries and class-action lawsuits, including Congressional investigations, queries by the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as several state attorneys general.  When Congress hauls in Equifax CEO Richard Smith to grill him, it can start by asking why he put someone with degrees in music in charge of the company’s data security.
– Two senior Equifax execs have stepped down as the investigation of what may be the biggest data breach in US history continues. The credit-reporting firm says security chief Susan Mauldin and chief technology officer David Webb are retiring effective immediately, the New York Times reports. After the leak that exposed the data of 143 million Americans became public, it emerged that Mauldin has a degree in music composition but apparently no education in technology or security. Interviews with Mauldin have been removed from YouTube, though MarketWatch unearthed a transcript of one in which she says they are interested in hiring good analysts of any kind, because "security can be learned." The departing execs are not among the three that sold off $1.8 million in shares days after the company discovered the breach. The company's shares have dropped by around a third since the breach was disclosed, the AP notes. Democratic senators introduced a bill Friday that would ban Equifax from profiting from the breach by charging for credit freezes. At Bloomberg, the editorial board argues that Equifax should be dealt with under existing legislation, which allows the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to "penalize companies for failing to make 'reasonable' efforts to keep sensitive information out of the wrong hands." (For two months, Equifax failed to fix the known security hole that hackers exploited.)