NEW YORK — Equifax tapped longtime financial industry executive Mark Begor as its new permanent CEO, the company said Wednesday, as Equifax continues to try to recover from fallout surrounding the company’s massive data breach.

The 59-year-old Begor will take over from Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., who became interim CEO in September when Richard Smith stepped down from the post. Smith’s departure followed those of two other high-ranking executives who left in the wake of the hack, which exploited a software flaw that Equifax didn’t fix to expose Social Security numbers, birthdates and other personal data that provide keys to identify theft.

Begor comes to Atlanta-based Equifax from the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, but he spent 35 years at General Electric before joining that firm.

A total of about 147.9 million Americans have been impacted by Equifax’s data breach, which remains the largest exposure of personal information in history, and the company is under numerous state and federal investigations as well as dozens of class-action lawsuits.


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