IRS awards Equifax $7.25 million no-bid contract to help prevent fraud despite massive security breach

The Internal Revenue Service last week issued a no-bid contract to Equifax, agreeing to pay the company $7.25 million to help prevent fraud, despite a massive security breach that compromised the personal information of at least 145 million Americans, Politico reports.

As Politico notes, the contract means Equifax will "verify taxpayer identity" and "assist in ongoing identity verification and validations" at the IRS, even as lawmakers probe the leak that potential compromised tens of millions of Americans’ social security numbers.

The Justice Department has opened an insider trading investigation into three top Equifax officials who sold company stock before disclosing the company was hacked.