Equifax hack: former CIO Jun Ying charged with insider trading

Former chief information officer Jun Ying has been charged with insider trading

Former Equifax chief information officer (CIO) Jun Ying has been charged with insider trading. He managed to sell shares for about $1 million. He is the first executive who faces criminal charges after the massive Equifax hack last summer.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pressed the parallel criminal charges on March 14. According to the 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.^[1]

Ying sold Equifax stocks after having the information how data breach can affect the share price. Just before the company went public about the breach, Ying sold the shares for about $1 million.

After reporting Equifax hack, company’s shares fell from $142 worth to $93 within a couple of days.^[2] According to SEC complaint, he avoided the loss of $117,000.

Jun Ying was dismissed as soon as the Equifax learned about his trades.

Ying is not the only one who sold company’s stocks before reporting breach publicly

Former CIO is not the only one who sold shares before Equifax went public about the hack. Three seniors executives also made about $2 million in profits:^[3]

• Chief Financial Officer John Gamble sold shares worth $946,374;
• President of U.S. information solutions Joseph Loughran – $584,099;
• President of workforce solutionsRodolfo Ploder – $250,458.

The company started the investigation on these trades. However, Equifax board reported^[4] that none of them were aware of the data breach, so their trades were said to be clear.

Equifax data breach affected about 44% of the U.S population

Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax was hacked in summer 2017. According to the reports appeared in September, cyber criminals had access to personal customers’ information from the middle of May until July.

Equifax hack is said to be the largest data breach in the history because criminals managed to steal almost half of American’s personal information. The number of affected customers is around 145 million, which is around 44% of the U.S citizens.^[5]

Criminals stole full names, birthdays, credit card numbers, social security numbers, driver license numbers, and other personal information. Some residents of Canada and the United Kingdom were affected too.

Soon after the data breach company’s chief executive officer (CEO), chief information officer (CIO) and chief security officer (CSO) resigned.

Equifax created a website for customers who may have been affected by the breach. The company provides the latest information from the investigation, allows checking whether their information was stolen and offers help for the victims of the breach.