A former Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Equifax had been sentenced to federal prison for insider trading.
Jun Ying, CIO of Equifax U.S. Information Solutions, was sentenced to four months prison nearly two years after the disastrous data breach was made public. Ying learned about the sensitive breach as CIO, yet traded the stock anyways before the breach was made public.
In the summer of 2017, hackers stole sensitive information (to include social security numbers and birth dates) from Equifax on over 145 million Americans.
“Ying thought of his own financial gain before the millions of people exposed in this data breach even knew they were victims,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak in a press release last Thursday.
“He abused the trust placed in him and the senior position he held to profit from inside information.”
By making the illegal trades, Ying avoided more than $117,000 in losses. Instead he realized gains of over $480,000 on over $950,000 in proceeds.
As a consequence, Ying will have to pay a restitution of $117,117.61 and also fined $55,000. Ying was also sentenced to four months in prison to be followed by one year of supervised release,
Another former Equifax manager, Sudhakar Reddy Bonthu was also found guilty of insider trading of Equifax stock linked to the data breach. He pleaded guilty on July 23, 2018.