Credit checking specialist Equifax Inc (NYSE:EFX) was being given the benefit of the doubt on Thursday evening after another embarrassing cyber-security lapse.
The information provider, which was a victim of a massive cyber-security breach last month, took a customer help page on its web site offline on Thursday after technology web site Ars Technica reported that site visitors were being redirected to a dodgy download site.
“On Thursday afternoon, Equifax officials said the mishap was the result of a third-party service Equifax was using to collect website-performance data and that the 'vendor's code running on an Equifax website was serving malicious content.' Equifax initially shut down the affected portion of its site, but the company has since restored it after removing the malicious content,” Ars Technica subsequently reported.
Shares in Equifax, which had fallen US$1.69 to US$108.81 in regular trading hours on Friday, recovered all of those losses in after-hours trading.
Meanwhile, another credit checking outfit, TransUnion, reportedly suffered the same sort of security breach on its Central America web site.
Spark Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ONCE) was wanted in screen-based trading Thursday evening after the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee unanimously recommended approval of Spark's LUXTURNA (voretigene neparvovec) , an investigational, potential one-time gene therapy for the treatment of patients with vision loss due to confirmed biallelic RPE65-mediated inherited retinal disease.
Trading in the shares had been suspended in regular trading, pending the FDA announcement, but shot up 7.2% to US$92.44 in after-hours trading.
Topping that rise was Exfo Inc (NASDAQ:EXFO), up 13.6% at US$4.60, after fiscal fourth quarter earnings beat the Street's expectations.
Analysts had expected flat earnings per share, but the communication services provide and data center specialist mustered earnings of two cents a share.
Baxter International Inc (NYSE:BAX) became the latest company to warn of the disruption caused by hurricanes.
In Baxter's case, it was Hurricane Maria that disrupted the medical equipment company's operations in Puerto Rico, which will probably cause a revenue reduction in the fourth quarter.
The company said it expects to mitigate the related earnings impact through positive performance in other areas of the business.