Equifax Inc. has reached an agreement with eight states that will require the credit-reporting agency to put stronger security measures in place to prevent future data breaches.

About 147.9 million Americans were impacted by Equifax’s 2017 data breach, which was the largest exposure of personal information in history.While Equifax has taken steps to correct the problems that led to incident, state regulators say Wednesday’s consent order addresses deficiencies that have persisted.

The states involved were: California, Texas, New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Georgia, Alabama and Maine.

The order requires Equifax to take a number of steps to shore up weaknesses in its information technology and data security operations over the next year.

Equifax, which is based in Atlanta, said that a “good number” of the action items have been completed and that it expects to “meet or exceed” all the commitments made in the order.

(Associated Press, copyright 2018)

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