8 ms·

Former Equifax employee indicted for insider trading

186 points by QUFB 9y ago

_nickwhite 9y ago
While I'm quick to render my own verdict, especially in the tech realm where I live, work, and play, I was glad the article included this: "Members of the public are reminded that the indictment only contains charges. The defendant is presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial." Trial by Internet and Guilty-by-default isn't a good world to live in.
- supercanuck 9y ago
  The internet is not taking anyone's freedoms away, the internet is punishing people's reputations. big difference.
  - mieseratte 9y ago
    Punishment when we have yet to assess guilt.
    - supercanuck 9y ago
      What punishment would that be? People inside the company sold right before the dip. That is a fact. Seems like you are arguing they should be free of consequences. We judge people on their actions all the time, it is difficult to know their intentions. Other people have to be on the otherside of that trade. It’s publically good to know there are possible untrustworthy actors in a company, especially when it is extremely difficult to prove white collar crimes
      - Domenic_S 9y ago
        Selling before a dip is not a crime.
        supercanuck 9y ago
        I feel like I'm being misunderstood. My point is that if you are a leader in a company and you sell before the dip which is based on some pretty negative event, you should not necessarily go to prison or have freedom's taken from you. BUT, I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Should we trust your statements when you get on that investor call? Isn't your prior actions relevant?
        mulmen 9y ago
        I don't see the benefit to this system. If we assassinate reputation based on coincidence then we have introduced an unnecessary element of chance. I would much rather base my opinion on facts. If the CEO lied to shareholders on a call or used inside knowledge to sell shares illegally then the reputation damage will come from the conviction. In the absence of this evidence I see no benefit in assuming guilt or otherwise damaging the CEOs reputation.
        saagarjha 9y ago
        > I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Why not? What if they were just unlucky? Why do you get to decided whether their reputation suffers?
        s73v3r_ 9y ago
        When you know of something like the revealing of a huge breach, it is.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Plenty of people have assessed guilt. It has not been demonstrated in the court of law which is an important difference. However, when you consider how many people don't trust the US court system. You can't expect them to reserve judgement based on what they consider a biased system.
      - dumbfounder 9y ago
        Exactly. Criminal convictions have a higher standard than civil, which obviously have a much higher standard than the court of public opinion. Just because you don't get arrested and convicted in criminal court does not mean you aren't "guilty" using a less stringent standard.
      - prewett 9y ago
        What exactly do you mean by "people don't trust the US court system"? That the guilty go free? That the innocent are wrongly convicted? That guilty people are not prosecuted? That justices are corrupt? And approximately how many people have this view? I'm getting kind of tired of this rhetoric on how the US is so bad/corrupt/untrustable/whatever the word is today. We have some of the best courts in the history of the world. How would you like to get tried in Chinese, Russian, African, or South American court? Or be tried in the middle ages? Are they perfect? No. Will there be miscarriages of justice? Yes. Are you likely to experience one? No. And if you think it's that bad, well, there are plenty of other countries you could move to and find out if they are better. Or you could work to improve the system we do have (after studying it enough to understand it well enough to actually improve and not just change it).
        lovich 9y ago
        Just because other places are worse doesn't mean the US is good. The US legal system enforces the law, not justice. It does a lot of work to make it more equitable but it's still obvious that if you have money you live by a different set of rules. The majority of the population couldn't pull off what the affluenza teen did, beat up their girlfriend publicly like Chris Brown with little to no affect on their career, or rape a kid and only serve 60 to 120 days in jail[1]. Every one of these instances of injustice degrade people's trust in the system If I was an average person I'd rather be tried in the US, but if I was rich it seems like it doesn't matter. Our legal system seems pretty equivalent in outcome for the upper class. You only get more than a trivial punishment if you manage to upset someone with more money or power than you [1]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-billionaire-20140606_1_sexual-assault-charge-wisconsin-billionaire http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us...
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    Why does the internet have the power to hand out punishment?
- jonknee 9y ago
  Either the CEO is incompetent and didn't know about a huge failure of his organization or he's a criminal, either way the verdict of public opinion is not going to be kind.
  - Jesus_Jones 9y ago
    It's very unlikely that he didn't know about the security problems, that hadn't be released. I'd say about 99.9% chance that he knew. We know that it's very tempting for otherwise intelligent people to fall victim to this, like our favorite domestic lifestyle wallstreet-er CEO, Martha Stewart.
    - TylerE 9y ago
      Stewart was done for obstruction and perjury, not insider trading.
      - spear 9y ago
        Not to pick on you because I see this response a lot, but that's really misleading. She was also indicted for insider trading and though that charge was thrown away by the judge, the SEC also filed a civil case against her for insider trading. She settled that one by paying $195,000 and agreeing not to serve as an officer of any public company for five years. It's not like the insider trading didn't cost her anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Repercussions_and_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Rep...
    - mulmen 9y ago
      Can you share the dataset you used to calculate the 99.9% probability? Do you have experience with other CEOs in this kind of situation? Do you have inside knowledge of Equifax? I'm not sure how anyone can be so certain in the absence of evidence. Indeed this is the reason we put the burden of proof on the accuser and assume innocence.
      - jonknee 9y ago
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  It's really tricky because while you're absolutely right, they generally don't indict innocent people. So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea, it's way too easy to just forget about the 10%.
  - pixl97 9y ago
    >So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea I don't really like how plea agreements work in the US either. Too many of them are "Agree to this lower charge or we will Aaron Swartz you, and you will go bankrupt trying to defend yourself."
    - fjsolwmv 9y ago
      Aaron Swartz (most likely) broke the law. The problem there was that many people disliked the law.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
What's unfortunate is that the government has largely been silent on the culpability of Equifax executives, and the company as a whole.
- dangoor 9y ago
  "Equifax may actually make money off this breach": https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/28/tech/sen-elizabeth-warren-equifax-may-actually-make-money-breach https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/28/tech/sen-elizabeth-wa...
24gttghh 9y ago
Okay, now what about the actual breach? No one gets in trouble for that and nothing changes. If I missed something that did change, or where someone actually did get in trouble, please enlighten me. A suggestion to companies: stop using SSN's as usernames/passwords! Get rid of the static numbers and give out encryption certificates or something!
- notyourwork 9y ago
  Encryption certificates for grandma and grandpa? We need a solution that works for everyone and until technology supports the mass it won't work. I agree we need a new solution but we need one that works for everyone.
  - 24gttghh 9y ago
    It doesn't have to be a literal alphanumeric cert in a text file. There could be smart cards distributed, or an app people install on their phones for identity verification. Or even just T/OTP from a phone app to allow credit requests. Whatever happened to one-time Credit Card numbers for use on a per-transaction basis?
    - rmk 9y ago
      They still exist. Capital one provides this functionality that can be easily accessed via a browser plugin.
      - softawre 9y ago
        Most credit cards do this. My daily driver Citi 2% does. In fact Google Pay automatically uses a virtual number by default when used with this card.
    - GFischer 9y ago
      We have those as national identity cards in my country (by the same company that makes a lot of national IDs): https://www.gemalto.com/govt/customer-cases/uruguay-eid https://www.gemalto.com/govt/customer-cases/uruguay-eid
randomdrake 9y ago
I didn't remember the CIO being implicated in dumping stocks. Sure enough, a bit of Googling reveals that he wasn't among the original three that were so widely reported. Will be interesting to see if anything comes from the other executives who dumped their stock: * John Gamble, Jr. - Chief Financial Officer * Rodolpho Ploder - Workforce Solutions President * Joseph Loughran - Chief Marketing Officer The series of events mentioned in the article say that he texted someone about it before it happened, and that he was searching Google for stock price information. Maybe the other three didn't leave a clear enough trail or they just haven't been charged, yet? I would hate to think that just dumping all of the charges on the "tech guy" for everything would be what happens here.
- gascan 9y ago
  I would hate to think that just dumping all of the charges on the "tech guy" for everything would be what happens here. Remember when the entire worldwide VW cheating & coverup scandal was uncovered, and it was blamed on a single engineer? Thank god there was a preponderance of evidence that was bullshit- but it illustrated that exact knee-jerk reaction nicely. One can only imagine it works most of the time, otherwise they wouldn't try to pull it every time.
bob_theslob646 9y ago
This is the turn of a new era. Someone who actually commits a securities crime goes to jail! I hope this sends a message to Wall Street and CEO's that they are jail-able. Cannot wait to see what happens when the SEC starts to look at people pumping and dumping cryptocurrencies if the decide to regulate it besides ICO's. (https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answerspumpdumphtm.html https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answerspumpdumphtm.html)
- sneak 9y ago
  Meanwhile, on Monday, the statute of limitations ran out for indicting James Clapper (then DNI) for lying to congress under oath when he told them that the US military does not spy on millions of americans. Two classes in this country.
  - alehul 9y ago
    While that does seem unfair, how airtight would that case have to be? As outlined in another comment here, the CFO and CMO of Equifax appear to have dumped just as much if not more than this employee being indicted, however they're yet to be prosecuted, possibly due to less evidence. Would James Clapper be able to either claim a different definition of spying (i.e. "We collected this information but only accessed it when relevant"), or to claim it was "necessary for national security" to lie?
    - pixl97 9y ago
      >While that does seem unfair, how airtight would that case have to be? And therein lies the issue. If you are rich the state has to spend huge amounts of money to prove the case 'beyond a reasonable doubt', unfortunately for the poor it seems 'the preponderance of evidence' seems to be more than enough to get a criminal conviction.
- Xixi 9y ago
  I work in a Hedge Fund: my first reaction reading this article was to wonder how someone can be so stupid to even try something like that. Then I read your comment and realize that in fact, the rest of the world (people not in Finance) actually think that you can get away with this. He probably thought that everybody is doing it, so why not? Well, turns out that no, you can't do that, and yes, you can and will get prosecuted for it. So no message sent to Wall Street, we got that memo a long long time ago. Geeks thinking they know everything and disregarding all regulations, however, should take a long, hard look at it. Finance and anything touching it (like securities, which most crypto-currencies are) is very very very heavily regulated.
zaroth 9y ago
On Friday, August 25, 2017, Ying texted a co-worker that the breach they were working on “Sounds bad. We may be the one breached.” The following Monday, Ying conducted web searches on the impact of Experian’s 2015 data breach on its stock price. Later that morning, Ying exercised all of his available stock options... Always nice when criminals express their intent to perform an illegal act on 3rd party services ahead of time. I do always wonder where is the record of searches being held? A corporate MITM saving all queries? Or are criminals logging into their Google accounts before running queries on how to commit their crime?
- ryanlol 9y ago
  >Or are criminals logging into their Google accounts before running queries on how to commit their crime? I would imagine it's more of a case of the average person failing to understand just how much data google will store associated with their account.
- kevindqc 9y ago
  Could also simply be a matter of browser history not being deleted. Equifax doesn't seem to have hired the best lol.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Perhaps here? https://goo.gl/maps/yZBSw86yNfL2 https://goo.gl/maps/yZBSw86yNfL2
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  I would be kind of shocked if Equifax wasn't MITM'ing their internal web traffic. Doing so is somewhat par for the course if you want to be able to monitor and filter employee Internet activity, which most traditional corporations with significant security expectations do. That being said, browser history and Google Account history are both reasonable places to look as well. I am always a little amazed at the paper trail white collar criminals that get caught leave. If you think you might insider trade on some information, maybe you should talk to coworkers instead of texting them, and do your research on a personal PC[1] in private browsing on a coffee shop Wi-Fi network somewhere. (None of this should constitute endorsing the crime, it's just like... from a privacy-minded standpoint... there's so much they could've done "better".) [1]Honestly, if it's a six figure crime, why not a "burner PC". Buy a Chromebook with cash, and leave it at Goodwill when you're done. The last bit may even help soothe the guilty conscience a bit.
nathantotten 9y ago
The real test will be if the CEO of Intel faces this same punishment[1]. Seems like this mostly gets enforced at lower rungs. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/intel-ceos-sale-of-stock-just-before-security-bug-reveal-raises-questions/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/intel...
kerng 9y ago
It would be interesting, after this is off the table to see if there will be any other implications for Equifax, because I'm worried personal data of millions of Americanns floating around in public and noone is held accountable. Has anyone an update on the latest status - is that case rested and we all just live with it?
swarnie_ 9y ago
>Chief Information Office I;m assuming these trades needed to be registered in advance with the SEC and he failed to do so? Poor criminality from a C level employee Ironically Equifax is only down around $15 a share from its close on the day he sold. That's just over a $100k personal loss in unrealized gains, not a huge amount for someone in his position. Instead, if found guilty his career is over prematurely.
korethr 9y ago
Not one of the original 3 execs reported, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're getting away with it. The SEC may well still be investigating the original 3. In my observation, law enforcement tends to keep quiet about ongoing investigations until they're ready to press charges. We shall have to see if the original 3 execs get charged as well, or if there's a reason why their sales weren't insider trading per the law.
bogomipz 9y ago
Interesting I wonder why there hasn't been any action taken against the the three senior executive that were previously reported to have done similar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/three-equifax-executives-sold-stock-before-revealing-cyber-hack https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/three-equ...
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  The biz guys are smart enough not to write down evidence of their crimes.

186 points by QUFB 9y ago

While I'm quick to render my own verdict, especially in the tech realm where I live, work, and play, I was glad the article included this: "Members of the public are reminded that the indictment only contains charges. The defendant is presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial." Trial by Internet and Guilty-by-default isn't a good world to live in.

supercanuck 9y ago
The internet is not taking anyone's freedoms away, the internet is punishing people's reputations. big difference.
- mieseratte 9y ago
  Punishment when we have yet to assess guilt.
  - supercanuck 9y ago
    What punishment would that be? People inside the company sold right before the dip. That is a fact. Seems like you are arguing they should be free of consequences. We judge people on their actions all the time, it is difficult to know their intentions. Other people have to be on the otherside of that trade. It’s publically good to know there are possible untrustworthy actors in a company, especially when it is extremely difficult to prove white collar crimes
    - Domenic_S 9y ago
      Selling before a dip is not a crime.
      - supercanuck 9y ago
        I feel like I'm being misunderstood. My point is that if you are a leader in a company and you sell before the dip which is based on some pretty negative event, you should not necessarily go to prison or have freedom's taken from you. BUT, I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Should we trust your statements when you get on that investor call? Isn't your prior actions relevant?
        mulmen 9y ago
        I don't see the benefit to this system. If we assassinate reputation based on coincidence then we have introduced an unnecessary element of chance. I would much rather base my opinion on facts. If the CEO lied to shareholders on a call or used inside knowledge to sell shares illegally then the reputation damage will come from the conviction. In the absence of this evidence I see no benefit in assuming guilt or otherwise damaging the CEOs reputation.
        saagarjha 9y ago
        > I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Why not? What if they were just unlucky? Why do you get to decided whether their reputation suffers?
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        When you know of something like the revealing of a huge breach, it is.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Plenty of people have assessed guilt. It has not been demonstrated in the court of law which is an important difference. However, when you consider how many people don't trust the US court system. You can't expect them to reserve judgement based on what they consider a biased system.
    - dumbfounder 9y ago
      Exactly. Criminal convictions have a higher standard than civil, which obviously have a much higher standard than the court of public opinion. Just because you don't get arrested and convicted in criminal court does not mean you aren't "guilty" using a less stringent standard.
    - prewett 9y ago
      What exactly do you mean by "people don't trust the US court system"? That the guilty go free? That the innocent are wrongly convicted? That guilty people are not prosecuted? That justices are corrupt? And approximately how many people have this view? I'm getting kind of tired of this rhetoric on how the US is so bad/corrupt/untrustable/whatever the word is today. We have some of the best courts in the history of the world. How would you like to get tried in Chinese, Russian, African, or South American court? Or be tried in the middle ages? Are they perfect? No. Will there be miscarriages of justice? Yes. Are you likely to experience one? No. And if you think it's that bad, well, there are plenty of other countries you could move to and find out if they are better. Or you could work to improve the system we do have (after studying it enough to understand it well enough to actually improve and not just change it).
      - lovich 9y ago
        Just because other places are worse doesn't mean the US is good. The US legal system enforces the law, not justice. It does a lot of work to make it more equitable but it's still obvious that if you have money you live by a different set of rules. The majority of the population couldn't pull off what the affluenza teen did, beat up their girlfriend publicly like Chris Brown with little to no affect on their career, or rape a kid and only serve 60 to 120 days in jail[1]. Every one of these instances of injustice degrade people's trust in the system If I was an average person I'd rather be tried in the US, but if I was rich it seems like it doesn't matter. Our legal system seems pretty equivalent in outcome for the upper class. You only get more than a trivial punishment if you manage to upset someone with more money or power than you [1]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-billionaire-20140606_1_sexual-assault-charge-wisconsin-billionaire http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us...
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Why does the internet have the power to hand out punishment?
jonknee 9y ago
Either the CEO is incompetent and didn't know about a huge failure of his organization or he's a criminal, either way the verdict of public opinion is not going to be kind.
- Jesus_Jones 9y ago
  It's very unlikely that he didn't know about the security problems, that hadn't be released. I'd say about 99.9% chance that he knew. We know that it's very tempting for otherwise intelligent people to fall victim to this, like our favorite domestic lifestyle wallstreet-er CEO, Martha Stewart.
  - TylerE 9y ago
    Stewart was done for obstruction and perjury, not insider trading.
    - spear 9y ago
      Not to pick on you because I see this response a lot, but that's really misleading. She was also indicted for insider trading and though that charge was thrown away by the judge, the SEC also filed a civil case against her for insider trading. She settled that one by paying $195,000 and agreeing not to serve as an officer of any public company for five years. It's not like the insider trading didn't cost her anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Repercussions_and_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Rep...
  - mulmen 9y ago
    Can you share the dataset you used to calculate the 99.9% probability? Do you have experience with other CEOs in this kind of situation? Do you have inside knowledge of Equifax? I'm not sure how anyone can be so certain in the absence of evidence. Indeed this is the reason we put the burden of proof on the accuser and assume innocence.
    - jonknee 9y ago
Waterluvian 9y ago
It's really tricky because while you're absolutely right, they generally don't indict innocent people. So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea, it's way too easy to just forget about the 10%.
- pixl97 9y ago
  >So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea I don't really like how plea agreements work in the US either. Too many of them are "Agree to this lower charge or we will Aaron Swartz you, and you will go bankrupt trying to defend yourself."
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    Aaron Swartz (most likely) broke the law. The problem there was that many people disliked the law.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

What's unfortunate is that the government has largely been silent on the culpability of Equifax executives, and the company as a whole.

dangoor 9y ago
"Equifax may actually make money off this breach": https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/28/tech/sen-elizabeth-warren-equifax-may-actually-make-money-breach https://www.marketplace.org/2018/02/28/tech/sen-elizabeth-wa...

24gttghh 9y ago

Okay, now what about the actual breach? No one gets in trouble for that and nothing changes. If I missed something that did change, or where someone actually did get in trouble, please enlighten me. A suggestion to companies: stop using SSN's as usernames/passwords! Get rid of the static numbers and give out encryption certificates or something!

notyourwork 9y ago
Encryption certificates for grandma and grandpa? We need a solution that works for everyone and until technology supports the mass it won't work. I agree we need a new solution but we need one that works for everyone.
- 24gttghh 9y ago
  It doesn't have to be a literal alphanumeric cert in a text file. There could be smart cards distributed, or an app people install on their phones for identity verification. Or even just T/OTP from a phone app to allow credit requests. Whatever happened to one-time Credit Card numbers for use on a per-transaction basis?
  - rmk 9y ago
    They still exist. Capital one provides this functionality that can be easily accessed via a browser plugin.
    - softawre 9y ago
      Most credit cards do this. My daily driver Citi 2% does. In fact Google Pay automatically uses a virtual number by default when used with this card.
  - GFischer 9y ago
    We have those as national identity cards in my country (by the same company that makes a lot of national IDs): https://www.gemalto.com/govt/customer-cases/uruguay-eid https://www.gemalto.com/govt/customer-cases/uruguay-eid

randomdrake 9y ago

I didn't remember the CIO being implicated in dumping stocks. Sure enough, a bit of Googling reveals that he wasn't among the original three that were so widely reported. Will be interesting to see if anything comes from the other executives who dumped their stock: * John Gamble, Jr. - Chief Financial Officer * Rodolpho Ploder - Workforce Solutions President * Joseph Loughran - Chief Marketing Officer The series of events mentioned in the article say that he texted someone about it before it happened, and that he was searching Google for stock price information. Maybe the other three didn't leave a clear enough trail or they just haven't been charged, yet? I would hate to think that just dumping all of the charges on the "tech guy" for everything would be what happens here.

gascan 9y ago
I would hate to think that just dumping all of the charges on the "tech guy" for everything would be what happens here. Remember when the entire worldwide VW cheating & coverup scandal was uncovered, and it was blamed on a single engineer? Thank god there was a preponderance of evidence that was bullshit- but it illustrated that exact knee-jerk reaction nicely. One can only imagine it works most of the time, otherwise they wouldn't try to pull it every time.

bob_theslob646 9y ago

This is the turn of a new era. Someone who actually commits a securities crime goes to jail! I hope this sends a message to Wall Street and CEO's that they are jail-able. Cannot wait to see what happens when the SEC starts to look at people pumping and dumping cryptocurrencies if the decide to regulate it besides ICO's. (https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answerspumpdumphtm.html https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answerspumpdumphtm.html)

sneak 9y ago
Meanwhile, on Monday, the statute of limitations ran out for indicting James Clapper (then DNI) for lying to congress under oath when he told them that the US military does not spy on millions of americans. Two classes in this country.
- alehul 9y ago
  While that does seem unfair, how airtight would that case have to be? As outlined in another comment here, the CFO and CMO of Equifax appear to have dumped just as much if not more than this employee being indicted, however they're yet to be prosecuted, possibly due to less evidence. Would James Clapper be able to either claim a different definition of spying (i.e. "We collected this information but only accessed it when relevant"), or to claim it was "necessary for national security" to lie?
  - pixl97 9y ago
    >While that does seem unfair, how airtight would that case have to be? And therein lies the issue. If you are rich the state has to spend huge amounts of money to prove the case 'beyond a reasonable doubt', unfortunately for the poor it seems 'the preponderance of evidence' seems to be more than enough to get a criminal conviction.
Xixi 9y ago
I work in a Hedge Fund: my first reaction reading this article was to wonder how someone can be so stupid to even try something like that. Then I read your comment and realize that in fact, the rest of the world (people not in Finance) actually think that you can get away with this. He probably thought that everybody is doing it, so why not? Well, turns out that no, you can't do that, and yes, you can and will get prosecuted for it. So no message sent to Wall Street, we got that memo a long long time ago. Geeks thinking they know everything and disregarding all regulations, however, should take a long, hard look at it. Finance and anything touching it (like securities, which most crypto-currencies are) is very very very heavily regulated.

zaroth 9y ago

On Friday, August 25, 2017, Ying texted a co-worker that the breach they were working on “Sounds bad. We may be the one breached.” The following Monday, Ying conducted web searches on the impact of Experian’s 2015 data breach on its stock price. Later that morning, Ying exercised all of his available stock options... Always nice when criminals express their intent to perform an illegal act on 3rd party services ahead of time. I do always wonder where is the record of searches being held? A corporate MITM saving all queries? Or are criminals logging into their Google accounts before running queries on how to commit their crime?

ryanlol 9y ago
>Or are criminals logging into their Google accounts before running queries on how to commit their crime? I would imagine it's more of a case of the average person failing to understand just how much data google will store associated with their account.
kevindqc 9y ago
Could also simply be a matter of browser history not being deleted. Equifax doesn't seem to have hired the best lol.
rdiddly 9y ago
Perhaps here? https://goo.gl/maps/yZBSw86yNfL2 https://goo.gl/maps/yZBSw86yNfL2
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
I would be kind of shocked if Equifax wasn't MITM'ing their internal web traffic. Doing so is somewhat par for the course if you want to be able to monitor and filter employee Internet activity, which most traditional corporations with significant security expectations do. That being said, browser history and Google Account history are both reasonable places to look as well. I am always a little amazed at the paper trail white collar criminals that get caught leave. If you think you might insider trade on some information, maybe you should talk to coworkers instead of texting them, and do your research on a personal PC[1] in private browsing on a coffee shop Wi-Fi network somewhere. (None of this should constitute endorsing the crime, it's just like... from a privacy-minded standpoint... there's so much they could've done "better".) [1]Honestly, if it's a six figure crime, why not a "burner PC". Buy a Chromebook with cash, and leave it at Goodwill when you're done. The last bit may even help soothe the guilty conscience a bit.

nathantotten 9y ago

The real test will be if the CEO of Intel faces this same punishment[1]. Seems like this mostly gets enforced at lower rungs. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/intel-ceos-sale-of-stock-just-before-security-bug-reveal-raises-questions/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/intel...

kerng 9y ago

It would be interesting, after this is off the table to see if there will be any other implications for Equifax, because I'm worried personal data of millions of Americanns floating around in public and noone is held accountable. Has anyone an update on the latest status - is that case rested and we all just live with it?

swarnie_ 9y ago

>Chief Information Office I;m assuming these trades needed to be registered in advance with the SEC and he failed to do so? Poor criminality from a C level employee Ironically Equifax is only down around $15 a share from its close on the day he sold. That's just over a $100k personal loss in unrealized gains, not a huge amount for someone in his position. Instead, if found guilty his career is over prematurely.

korethr 9y ago

Not one of the original 3 execs reported, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're getting away with it. The SEC may well still be investigating the original 3. In my observation, law enforcement tends to keep quiet about ongoing investigations until they're ready to press charges. We shall have to see if the original 3 execs get charged as well, or if there's a reason why their sales weren't insider trading per the law.

bogomipz 9y ago

Interesting I wonder why there hasn't been any action taken against the the three senior executive that were previously reported to have done similar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/three-equifax-executives-sold-stock-before-revealing-cyber-hack https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/three-equ...

fjsolwmv 9y ago
The biz guys are smart enough not to write down evidence of their crimes.