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SEC Hacked! Is Anything Safe?

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Only a week after news of the massive Equifax hack hit, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that it too was hacked. The SEC hack took place in 2016 and according to a report from Reuters, the hackers could have profited from using insider information to make trades. Michelle Price writes:

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the hack occurred in 2016 but that it had only discovered last month that the cyber criminals may have used the information to make illicit trades.

The hackers exploited a software glitch in the test filing component of the system to gain access to non-public information, the agency said.

The SEC hosts large volumes of sensitive and confidential information that could be used for insider-trading or manipulating U.S. equity markets. Its EDGAR database houses millions of filings on corporate disclosures ranging from quarterly earnings to statements on mergers and acquisitions.

Although the SEC “promptly” patched the vulnerability after detecting it in 2016, the regulator only became aware last month that the glitch “may have provided the basis for illicit gain through trading”, it said.

This all begs the question, if America’s most critical financial information is vulnerable to hackers, is anything safe? It’s imperative that you remain diligent about using strong passwords, updating your computers’ software, and not opening or downloading anything from suspicious web pages or emails. This is the minimum level of security you need to employ to begin the process of protecting your information.

Read more here.

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.