Sen Warner: Congress May Need to Rethink Cybersecurity

Sen Mark Warner (D-VA), co-founder of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, said Congress might need to rethink cybersecurity policies in the wake of a data breach of Equifax, one of the largest data brokers in the U.S. The company revealed a "cybersecurity incident" that it said potentially impacted 143 million consumers, or about half the population. The information involved included "names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver's license numbers," said the company.

Sen Warner said, "[T]he scope of this breach...raises serious questions about whether Congress should not only create a uniform data breach notification standard, but also whether Congress needs to rethink data protection policies, so that enterprises such as Equifax have fewer incentives to collect large, centralized sets of highly sensitive data like SSNs and credit card information on millions of Americans."