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ARTICLE · 13 NOVEMBER 2023

SEC Sues SolarWinds And CIO Timothy Brown For Federal Securities Laws Violations Based On Failure To Maintain Adequate Cybersecurity Protections

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP
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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against SolarWinds Corporation and its chief information security officer, Timothy G Brown, alleging the defendants...

GlobalTechnology
Kate Macmillan
Kate Macmillan
Andrew Moir
Andrew Moir
Joseph Falcone
Joseph Falcone
Chris Emch
Chris Emch

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against SolarWinds Corporation and its chief information security officer, Timothy G Brown, alleging the defendants violated federal securities laws by misleading investors as to the adequacy of SolarWinds' cybersecurity measures.

The complaint, filed on 30 October in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that SolarWinds and Brown defrauded investors from at least October 2018, when SolarWinds' launched its initial public offering, to at least December 2020, when SolarWinds publicly disclosed that it had been the target of a major cybersecurity attack.

According to the SEC, the defendants mislead investors by both overstating the adequacy of SolarWinds' cybersecurity practices and failing to disclose known vulnerabilities in its cybersecurity infrastructure. The complaint cites a 2018 internal presentation prepared by one of SolarWinds' engineers warning that

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