Hackers targeted Equifax months before a massive breach that affected 143 million Americans

• Bryan Logan
 
•    

• 17h
• 2,037

Equifax

Hackers accessed Equifax systems in March in a separate intrusion from the July breach the credit-reporting agency publicly announced earlier this month, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The development could prompt further scrutiny over three company executives who sold nearly $2 million in company stock shortly after July 29, when Equifax said it learned of the second breach. Equifax has said those executives "had no knowledge" of that cyberattack, which potentially exposed the personal financial data of 143 million Americans.

The company publicly announced the second data breach on September 7, saying at the time that hackers had accessed its systems between mid-May and July. Equifax said at the time that criminals had accessed details including names and Social Security numbers. Credit-card numbers for about 209,000 people, as well as certain documents for another 182,000, were also accessed.

Equifax hired the cybersecurity firm Mandiant to conduct a forensic review after both breaches, Bloomberg said, adding that Equifax had notified "a small number of outsiders and banking customers" about the March incident but had not announced it publicly.

It was not immediately clear whether any personal consumer data was compromised in the March incident, which would have triggered disclosure laws requiring Equifax to notify the public. According to Bloomberg, the credit-monitoring agency said it had complied with notification requirements pertaining to that incident.

Read the full story at Bloomberg here »

SEE ALSO: The Justice Department has reportedly opened an insider-trading investigation at Equifax

DON'T MISS: 2 top Equifax execs are out after a massive hack that exposed 143 million Americans' financial data

NOW WATCH: A top analyst recommends buying Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google shares

00:00

01:43

More: equifax data breach Equifax Hack

The latest Republican Obamacare repeal is being pushed through the Senate at lightning speed

• Bob Bryan
 

• 19h
• 2,789

Lindsey Graham Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republicans are giving an Obamacare repeal one last go, and the process is moving at a blinding pace.

The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (GCHJ) bill is the latest attempt to repeal President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, and the GOP is wasting no time trying to pass it.

(Read more about the details of the bill here»)

The proposal was released on Wednesday, and Republicans are moving as quickly as they can because their ability to use the process known as budget reconciliation expires at the end of the month. Reconciliation bypasses the filibuster, meaning that Republicans can pass it with a simple majority vote and no Democratic support.

Here's a rundown of the process as it goes from here:

• CBO score: The Congressional Budget Office announced on Monday that it will have some projections for the bill early next week. In order to qualify for the budget reconciliation process, the GCHJ has to save at least as much money against the deficit as the House's American Health Care Act and save at least $1 billion per relevant committee.
  
  However, due to the limited timeframe, the CBO score will be missing "point estimates of the effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums."
• Senate parliamentarian ruling: Some time over the next two weeks, the Senate parliamentarian will rule on whether any part of the GCHJ violates the Byrd Rule. This rule stipulates that all parts of a bill being considered under budget reconciliation actually have to do with the budget. If the parliamentarian rules that parts of the bill do not qualify, the people will need a rewrite.
• Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing: While the Homeland Security Committee is not technically a committee of jurisdiction on the bill, it is lead by one of the authors: Sen. Ron Johnson. This allows Republicans to at least be able to say that the bill was brought in front of a committee. Many Republicans, particularly Sen. John McCain, complained that the previous healthcare bills were not given proper hearings.
• 90 seconds of debate: Perhaps most incredibly, the GCHJ would still be considered as a substitute amendment to the House bill passed in May. This means that the GOP would technically be restarting the process that was used when their previous Obamacare repeal effort failed. Based on where that process was, the GCHJ would get only 90 seconds of debate before it would be voted on.
• Vote: After the debate and possibly a few other parliamentary stalling tactics by Democrats, the vote would occur.

If the bill is passed, it would then need to be sent down to the House for another vote since it is different from the AHCA. The bill would likely need to be passed in the exact Senate version in order to avoid a conference committee that would be needed if the two bills are different.

A conference committee and re-vote by both the House and Senate probably aren't possible since Republicans only have until September 30 to pass the bill using reconciliation.

If the bill is fit in under the wire, it would be at most 17 days between the release of the bill and its passage.

SEE ALSO: A group of Republicans just launched a desperate Hail Mary to repeal Obamacare

NOW WATCH: Watch Stephen Colbert bring out Sean Spicer at the Emmys to defend the crowd size

00:00

01:33

More: Graham-Cassidy healthcare plan Lindsey Graham Bill Cassidy Obamacare