U.S. charges Hackers/Traders for stealing SEC filings
According to reuters U.S. authorities on Tuesday charged a suspected Ukrainian computer hacker and several traders with scheming to trade on market-moving corporate earnings news stolen from a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission database.
The charges against 10 defendants, including two charged criminally, relate to a suspected 2016 intrusion into Edgar, the SEC’s corporate filing system used by public companies and money managers.
Authorities said the scheme resulted in $4.14 million of illegal trading profit, and cheated ordinary investors.
Authorities said Oleksandr Ieremenko, 26, and Artem Radchenko, 27, both of Kiev, used a Lithuanian server to hack into Edgar and obtain thousands of “test filings,” including 157 earnings announcements, and shared their findings with traders.
The Department of Justice said conspirators sent fake emails to SEC employees that appeared to be from other employees, enabling Ieremenko and Radchenko to steal filings through phishing attacks and by installing malware on SEC computers.
