United States market regulator ‘The Security and Exchanges Commission’ has disclosed that hackers could have hacked its corporate disclosure database in 2016 to obtain critical info which could have been used to make profits by illegal trading.
The financial regulator of US added in its statement that the incident could have taken place at some time in mid of last year. But SEC officials detected the breach in its EDGAR system last month.
The Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system are a corporate disclosure database houses millions of documents that companies file to SEC to secure a funding from investors. If this hacking possibility turns into a reality, then it could stoke growing fears over the cyber threat posting on the integrity of the financial markets and listed companies.
As per the sources reporting to our Cybersecurity Insiders, the hackers could have exploited a software glitch in test filing component of the system. And this helped them in gaining access to non-public info. Although the IT staff of SEC fixed the glitch in 2016, they discovered in August this year that the last year’s glitch could have provided illicit gain to hackers.
Meanwhile, Equifax which witnessed a data breach in its systems on a recent note is getting ready to face a legal lawsuit filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The lawsuit will seek civil penalties, disgorgement of profits, restitution, costs and attorney’s fees.
Elizabeth Warren, the Senator of Massachusetts called the breach a nightmare and said that credit reporting companies should not profit from monitoring or freezing credit which arises from hacks.
