One lawsuit has already been filed against Equifax in the wake of its massive security failure. But that’s the just beginning of the consequences for the credit bureau and the banks that use it.

Lawmakers signaled Monday that Congress will likely have a swift and powerful response to revelations that the credit reporting company Equifax was hacked, exposing 143 million people to identity theft.

The Equifax breach has millions of Americans now thinking about freezing their credit to guard against identity theft. But those who act could be cutting themselves off from the nation's vast credit economy.

Congress may soon try to limit the personal identifiable information that companies and the government can collect on consumers based on their reaction to the massive data breach at Equifax.

Calls for less reliance on credit bureaus and Social Security numbers for verification are leading many to envision a future of identity on a distributed ledger.

Democrats are pushing for a public-sector alternative to the three main credit bureaus, but Republicans argue that the government is ill-equipped to safely handle consumer data and produce accurate reports.

Thousands of Americans volunteered to check the accuracy of their credit reports and many discovered mistakes, according to new research from Consumer Reports. The results provide fresh ammunition to critics of the major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.