SEC Discloses Hackers Penetrated EDGAR, Profited in Trading (usatoday.com)

Chris Woodyard, writing for USA Today: Hackers made their way into the Security and Exchange Commission's EDGAR electronic filing system last year, retrieving private data that appear to have resulted in "an illicit gain through trading," the agency said. It was only in August that the commission learned that hackers may have been able to use their illegal activities to make ill-gotten gains through market trading, said Chairman Jay Clayton in a lengthy statement posted on the SEC's website. EDGAR, which stands for Electronic Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval, is considered critical to the SEC's operation and the ability of investors to see the electronic filings of companies and markets. The SEC says about 50 million documents are viewed through EDGAR on a typical day. It receives about 1.7 million filings a year.

Comments

Assumption

[Archangel Michael]

Lets just assume that everything has been hacked, and proceed from there.

Because if it hasn't been hacked, then it will be. And if you think you haven't been hacked, you probably already have been.

This is the safest assumption of all, and is more than likely to be accurate at some point.

My bet

[fubarrr]

I bet that what they are talking about refers to people being able to see company's statements earlier than their nominal publication date. No hacking was required, that just had to make up a URL parameter

Re:Accountants

[Rob Riggs]

The information security professionals should define security standards, security auditing standards, and security reporting standards, much like we have in the financial realm, for all publicly traded companies. And they should lobby the SEC and Congress to mandate that these be filed with them just like quarterly financial statements. Actually, its far more likely that we can get the Europeans on board with this, and then it will eventually trickle down to the US.