Guess who just got a $7M federal contract to protect the IRS against fraud?

If you guessed Equifax - and why would you? - you would have been right.

It was announced today on a federal government web site which tracks contracts that Equifax has been awarded a $7M contract to protect the IRS from fraud.  Equifax will be called upon to assit the IRS with verifying taxpayer identity and with on-going validation and identity verification needs for the IRS.  The contract was designated as "sole source," which means that it was awarded without a competitive bidding process.

Equifax made the news most recently after they last month announced a security breach whiich exposed confidential financial information of around 145.5 million individuals.  The componay is currently under investigation by the Justice Department, the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission.