CYBERWAR/SEC: “The top U.S. markets regulator disclosed Wednesday [9-20-17] that hackers penetrated its electronic system for storing public-company filings last year and may have traded on the information.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairman, Jay Clayton, revealed the breach in an unusual and lengthy statement issued Wednesday evening that didn’t provide many details about the intrusion, including the extent of any illegal trading.
The SEC said it was investigating the source of the hack, which exploited a software vulnerability in a part of the agency’s Edgar system, a comprehensive database of filings made by thousands of public companies and other financial firms regulated by the SEC.
The commission said the hack was detected in 2016, but that regulators didn’t learn about the possibility of related illicit trading until August, when they started an investigation and began cooperating with what the SEC called ‘appropriate authorities.’
A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment on the SEC disclosure.”
-Dave Micheals, “SEC Discloses Edgar Corporate Filing System Was Hacked in 2016,” The Wall Street Journal online, Sept. 20, 2017 11:10pm