Russell D. Ayres (New Equifax CSO)

Russell David Ayres has been appointed interim Chief Security Officer (CSO) of Equifax in the wake of the massive data breach at the credit-reporting agency.

The announcement came about a week after the company made the disclosure that the personal information of more than 140 million Americans had been exposed to hackers.

Based in the Washington D.C. area, the 44-year-old Russ Ayres is a graduate of Jackson State University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science (1989-1992). He stepped in to replace Equifax’s CISO / CSO Susan Mauldin, whose undergraduate and graduate degrees were notably in music composition.

As Senior IT Manager at Equifax, Ayres was responsible for Mobile Commerce development including Digital Identity and Fraud, Compliance (KYC/AML), online audience measurement and business intelligence. He worked in that capacity since January 2015, for a total of two years and about nine months. Prior to joining Equifax, he was employed at Claritas as AVP.

More details to be posted here as they become available.