Republicans and Democrats are feuding over the Equifax breach

Republican leaders of the House Oversight Committee released a scathing report about the Equifax data breach on Dec 10, detailing a series of security failures that preceded the 2017 compromise of 140 million Americans’ personal information. A few hours later, committee Democrats released a competing report about the consumer credit reporting agency, lashing out at their Republican colleagues for not demanding new cybersecurity laws to prevent the next major data breach. The competing reports highlight how cybersecurity, which was once considered a largely bipartisan topic, has been infected by partisan conflict.

The Democrats’ Oversight report called for new laws that would raise financial penalties for data breaches, simplify how consumers are notified about breaches and boost federal regulators’ cybersecurity efforts. The Republican report hit many of the same issues — but urged government cooperation with the private sector rather than mandates. The Democratic report proposed broadening the Federal Trade Commission’s regulatory power over credit ratings agencies, such as Equifax, for example, while the Republican report simply urged studying those regulatory powers.