Former Equifax CIO Charged With Insider Trading

The SEC and the Justice Department charged former Equifax CIO Jun Ying with insider trading for allegedly selling about $1 million in stock options before the company announced a massive data breach.

Federal authorities have charged a former CIO of Equifax, who allegedly sold about $1 million in stock options before the company announced a massive data breach, with insider trading.
By selling the stocks before the breach disclosure, the
US Securities and Exchange Commission
alleges that Jun Ying saved about $117,000 in losses, according to a March 14 statement from the commission detailing its investigation. The US Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia
has also charged Ying
with insider trading.
Ying, 42, of Atlanta, had been the CIO of Equifaxs US business, and had been in line to become the global CIO before the data breach.
(Source:
Activedia via Pixabay
)
US Attorney Byung J. BJay Pak issued a statement Wednesday, following the grand jurys indictment, noting that Ying took advantage of his position as CIO to sell his stock options before the data breach news became public.
This defendant took advantage of his position as Equifaxs USIS Chief Information Officer and allegedly sold over $950,000 worth of stock to profit before the company announced a data breach that impacted over 145 million Americans, Pak said. Our office takes the abuse of trust inherent in insider trading very seriously and will prosecute those who seek to profit in this manner.
Ying learned of the breach on August 25, 2017, and wrote to a co-worker: Sounds bad. We may be the one breached, according to the indictment. Ying then began researching the financial effects of other data breaches the following Monday. After that, he sold 6,815 shares of Equifax stock, receiving proceeds of over $950,000, and gains of over $480,000.
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On September 7, 2017, Equifax announced a data breach -- one of the largest ever recorded -- that exposed the exposed the social security numbers and other personal information of about 148 million customers in the US. The companys stock dropped following the disclosure. (See
Equifax Breach Points to Similar Security Concerns – Report
.)
In February, Equifax announced a new chief information security officer (CISO) to oversee the companys information security infrastructure. (See
Equifax Taps Former Home Depot Security Chief as New CISO
.)
The fact that Equifaxs company officers sold stock before disclosing the data breach led the SEC to update its guidelines about how businesses need to disclose cyber attacks to the public. (See
Equifax, Intel Help Spur SEC to Update Cybersecurity Regulations
.)
Related posts:
Solving the Problems of an Equifax
Equifax Breach Wont Be the Last or Worst
Equifax Hacked: Profit Before Protection?
Right & Wrong Lessons From the Equifax Breach
— Scott Ferguson, Editor,
Enterprise Cloud News
. Follow him on Twitter
@sferguson_LR
.

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Former Equifax CIO Charged With Insider Trading