U.S. authorities charge former Equifax executive over insider trading: SEC

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

U.S. MARCH 14, 2018 / 10:38 AM / UPDATED 16 MINUTES AGO

U.S. authorities charge former Equifax executive over insider trading: SEC

Reuters Staff
1 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have charged former Equifax executive Jun Ying over alleged insider trading before the credit reporting company publicly announced its data breach in 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday.

Ying, the former chief information office for one of the company’s units, faces criminal charges filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia in addition to charges filed by the SEC, the agency said in a statement.

(This version of the story corrects first name in paragraph 1)

Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-equifax-cyber-sec/u-s-authorities-charge-former-equifax-executive-over-insider-trading-sec-idUSKCN1GQ23W

______________________________________________________________________

Source: SEC

Former Equifax Executive Charged With Insider Trading

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2018-40

Washington D.C., March 14, 2018 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a former chief information officer of a U.S. business unit of Equifax with insider trading in advance of the company’s September 2017 announcement about a massive data breach that exposed the social security numbers and other personal information of about 148 million U.S. customers.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Jun Ying, who was next in line to be the company’s global CIO, allegedly used confidential information entrusted to him by the company to conclude that Equifax had suffered a serious breach. The SEC alleges that before Equifax’s public disclosure of the data breach, Ying exercised all of his vested Equifax stock options and then sold the shares, reaping proceeds of nearly $1 million. According to the complaint, by selling before public disclosure of the data breach, Ying avoided more than $117,000 in losses.

“As alleged in our complaint, Ying used confidential information to conclude that his company had suffered a massive data breach, and he dumped his stock before the news went public,” said Richard R. Best, Director of the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office. “Corporate insiders who learn inside information, including information about material cyber intrusions, cannot betray shareholders for their own financial benefit.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-40

[Wwcd]

1. So where did all that "confidential information " end up?

As it is suspect that Spectrum Health (DeVos) sold its patient's "confidential information " for targeting & influencing of voters, we should also know if EQUIFAX profitted from the "hack" of confidential information .

Theft of personal information in 2015/16 was a hot commodity bringing enormous profits to those had it to sell.

[nitpicker]

2. Link to the DoJ PR

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/former-equifax-employee-indicted-insider-trading