Equifax's Bad News: 3 Takeaways

The breach was reportedly detected on July 29th, though it was made public on September 7 after the underlying issue was remedies. Breaches are not uncommon –  rival Experian suffered a much smaller one last year – but the magnitude of this one, combined with the loss of Social Security numbers sets the it apart. Though not the largest known breach - Yahoo! reportedly exposed 500 million accounts, this puts Equifax in an awkward position. After all, Equifax is in the data business.

Attorneys and experts will be opining on this episode for a while. But even at this early stage, three points stand out.

One, with security breaches virtually inevitable, with the commensurate potential for increasingly significant repercussions, Big Data may be evolving out of the purely private or corporate domain into a quasi-public enterprise. Think utilities.