In 2017 criminals hacked the credit reporting company Equifax. On October 3 its former chief executive, Richard Smith, testified before a House subcommittee. He traced the breach to a security patch that was never applied. “The human error was that the individual who’s responsible for communicating in the organization to apply the patch, did not.”
In the same hearing he said: “The criminal hack happened on my watch, and as CEO, I am ultimately responsible, and I take full responsibility.” Representative Greg Walden said: “Talk about ham-handed responses, this is simply unacceptable.”