On Sept. 20,
SEC Chairman John Clayton announced that Wall Street's
watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), was the
victim of a cyber hack in 2016. In what ironically amounts to the
SEC's first significant disclosure of its own cybersecurity
risks, Clayton stated: "In certain cases, threat actors have
managed to access or misuse our systems."
According to Clayton, "[i]n August 2017, the
Commission learned that an incident previously detected in 2016 may
have provided the basis for illicit gain through trading."
Hackers apparently exploited a weakness in the SEC's
Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieving (EDGAR) system.
EDGAR houses financial records for all of the companies listed on
stock exchanges in the United States – including domestic and
foreign securities issuers and some companies with publicly traded
debt. Such data,
says cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright, could have allowed
hackers to manipulate markets and put upwards of $1
