Everything you search on the web, everything you text to others, is all part of your digital footprint. Prosecutors can and will track it down if you are accused of a crime.
Digital clues lead to indictment of former Equifax CIO
And these very things are key pieces of evidence in new insider trading charges against former Equifax Chief Information Officer (CIO) Jun Ying. According to the U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta:
"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 held at UBS Financial Services, resulting in him receiving 6,815 shares of Equifax stock, which he then sold. He received proceeds of over $950,000, and realized a gain of over $480,000. On September 7, 2017, Equifax publicly announced its data breach, which resulted in its stock price falling."
A federal grand jury indicted him yesterday, which led to the federal charges today.
"This defendant took advantage of his position as Equifax’s USIS Chief Information Officer and allegedly sold over $950,000 worth of stock to profit before the company announced a data breach that impacted over 145 million Americans,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak.
Equifax responds to charges against former CIO
Equifax responded quickly in a press release: “Upon learning about Mr. Ying’s August sale of Equifax shares, we launched a review of his trading activity, concluded he violated our company’s trading policies, separated him from the company and reported our findings to government authorities."
The company also says this case is different than four other Equifax executives who were found, by a board investigation, not to have engaged in insider trading.
