The chairman and chief executive of Equifax, Richard F. Smith, stepped down on Tuesday in the aftermath of a data breach that exposed the personal information of as many as 143 million people, the credit reporting agency said.
Equifax said that Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., most recently the president of its Asia-Pacific region, had been appointed interim chief executive. The company said it planned to conduct a search for a new chief executive and would consider candidates from inside and outside the company.
“Speaking for everyone on the board, I sincerely apologize,” Mark Feidler, the Equifax board’s new chairman, said in a statement. He said the board has formed a special committee to address the data breach.
The company declined to make Mr. Feidler and Mr. Barros available for interviews. “Our leadership team looks forward to engaging more with the media in the coming weeks,” Wyatt Jefferies, an Equifax spokesman, said in a statement.
Equifax, which is based in Atlanta, said this month that hackers had exploited an unpatched flaw in its website software to extract names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and other information about millions of people.
The company faced a blistering outcry from lawmakers and the public for failing to protect the sensitive data and for a response that many considered lackluster. A website that Equifax created to provide information about the breach was initially plagued by problems, and the company struggled to keep up with a deluge of questions from confused and alarmed consumers.
Three Equifax executives, including its chief financial officer, John W. Gamble Jr., sold $1.8 million in company shares in the days after the breach was discovered, but before it was publicly disclosed. (Equifax has said the executives were unaware of the breach at the time of the stock sales.)
Two other top Equifax executives — the chief information officer and the chief security officer — stepped down on Sept. 14.
Mr. Smith, 57, had been the chairman and chief executive of Equifax since 2005. He joined the company after a 22-year career at General Electric that included top executive positions in the conglomerate’s asset-management, insurance and leasing divisions.
Before the data breach at Equifax, Mr. Smith was widely admired on Wall Street for developing new products and increasing sales. Equifax had revenue of $3.1 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion the year he took over.
Mr. Smith will not receive a bonus in 2017 and will serve as an unpaid consultant to the company for up to 90 days, according to a regulatory filing. Mr. Smith will not receive a severance package or accelerated vesting of any stock that might have been due to him, Mr. Jefferies said.
In a sign of the fast-moving dynamics surrounding Mr. Smith’s departure from the company, he and the Equifax board left up in the air the official circumstances of his exit, meaning the board could retroactively conclude that he had been fired “for cause,” Mr. Jefferies said. A termination for cause would probably lead Mr. Smith to have to forgo or repay certain compensation.
Mr. Smith will retain about $18.4 million in pension benefits, according to a regulatory filing. He received bonuses of roughly $3 million in 2015 and 2016 and could have been eligible for a comparable amount this year.
“Mr. Smith has been very cooperative and supportive of this approach,” Mr. Jefferies said.
Federal authorities, led by the F.B.I., have opened a criminal investigation into the cyberattack on company.
More than 30 state attorneys general have begun investigations into the breach, and federal lawmakers from both parties have requested information from Equifax and called for hearings on what went wrong. The Massachusetts attorney general filed a lawsuit against Equifax on Sept. 19 seeking civil damages and other payments.
Mr. Smith had been scheduled to appear at two congressional hearings next week. The House Energy and Commerce Committee said in a message posted on Twitter Tuesday that it planned to proceed with its hearing, on Oct 3.
The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has scheduled a hearing for the next day. On Tuesday, Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, issued a statement effectively ordering Mr. Smith to appear as scheduled.
“A C.E.O. walking out the door just days before he is to appear before Congress is an abdication of his responsibility,” Mr. Schatz said.
Mr. Jefferies, the Equifax spokesman, indicated that Mr. Smith would cooperate.
“If Congress asks him, he will go,” Mr. Jefferies said.
