What do eBay, Yahoo, Adobe, Target, Tumblr and Equifax have in common? Every single one of them has been hacked in recent years — along with government organizations like the Commission on Elections and Edgar, the SEC’s corporate filing system, which officials said last month had been breached by hackers.

You can be forgiven if you forgot — or didn’t even hear about — some of these data breaches. Hacking and massive data leaks, the likes of which would have been big news years ago, are becoming more and more commonplace.

That’s troubling, but so is the way some companies have chosen to handle these incidents. The most recent breach, at Equifax, highlights the problem. Not only did hackers make off with the personal information of nearly half of all Americans, Equifax waited nearly six weeks to reveal what happened and how the company was working to respond to the crisis.

Never mind that its response — free credit monitoring and a credit freeze — proved to be the definition of “too little too late,” Equifax’s decision to keep 143 million people in the dark for nearly two months was irresponsible and unforgivable.

It’s a situation that cries out for reform and intervention, and Rep. Brian Ellis, R-11, is the co-sponsor of companion legislation in the state House that would help better protect consumers from the worst impulses of companies like Equifax.

The bills, HB 1846 and HB 1847, would require companies to disclose data breaches within 30 days to both consumers and the state attorney general’s office. They would also require companies to develop policies to safeguard and destroy consumers’ information, waive the fees associated with credit freezes, and provide free credit monitoring and reporting for one year after a breach is reported.

The bills moved out of committee on Tuesday, according to Ellis’ office, and are expected to get a floor vote in the House as early as next week — where we hope they will both receive overwhelming support.

Requiring prompt notification and stronger consumer protections represents low-hanging fruit when it comes to responding to these incidents. But it’s fruit worth plucking as quickly as possible.