The company denies that three executives who sold more than $1.7m in shares after the attack knew of the incident. Credit agency Equifax has admitted that data from 143 million customers may have been compromised in a security breach earlier this year. US, UK and Canadian residents are among those to have their details accessed through a website application vulnerability. The attack was discovered to have run from mid-May until 29 July, but the US company has taken 40 days to inform customers that their personal details were compromised. Three senior executives at the company - which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange - sold shares worth almost $1.8m before the breach was publicly disclosed. According to Bloomberg they had not been informed of the incident at this point.

The firm's shares dropped 12.4% in after-hours trading when the data breach was announced. Names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses and in some instances driving license numbers were stolen, as were credit card numbers for more than 200,000 people.

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