Bruce Schneier has posted his testimony before Congress about the Equifax breach to his blog.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archiv...the_equif.html

It is a searing indictment of Equifax's and other players' failure to take computer and network security seriously.

Unfortunately, Bruce stopped well short of criticizing the credit-reporting process itself. This process, which is a completely secret algorithm tapping into a database of information that is similarly effectively secret (that you are even penalized for accessing, yourself), produces "a single number that can rule your life." Banks have every reason to want to make this number as negative as possible, since this might drive you into the hands of pawn-shop loan sharks who charge thousands of percent interest.

Since the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed, banks have simply ceased to be institutions who were in the business of making loans at good, regulated interest rates to qualified people. There is far more money to be made lending that money to a loan-shark.