[HN Gopher] SEC notifies SolarWinds CISO and CFO of possible act...
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       SEC notifies SolarWinds CISO and CFO of possible action in cyber
       investigation
        
       Author : miguelazo
       Score  : 43 points
       Date   : 2023-06-30 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cybersecuritydive.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cybersecuritydive.com)
        
       | taeric wrote:
       | Wow, Matt Levine's take that "everything is securities fraud" is
       | rather amusing to apply here. I'm curious what the actual charges
       | will be.
        
         | duped wrote:
         | I mean as "selling a quarter billion dollars of stock before
         | publicly disclosing the cyber crime of the century that you
         | likely knew about for quite some time" is less "anything" and
         | more "trading on material non public information."
        
           | walrus01 wrote:
           | What's most amazing is they apparently thought this wouldn't
           | be noticed by the SEC? execs of a company of that size
           | absolutely should know better.
        
       | miguelazo wrote:
       | Would mark a major escalation in executive accountability...
       | Still no criminal charges, though.
       | 
       | >"Sunburst was a _highly sophisticated and unforeseeable attack_
       | that the United States government has said was carried out by a
       | global superpower using novel techniques in a new type of threat
       | that cybersecurity experts had never seen before," a company
       | spokesperson told Cybersecurity Dive in an emailed statement
        
         | grun3 wrote:
         | Wasn't the root cause of this attack someone setting a prod
         | system password to 'solarwinds123'? Not very sophisticated nor
         | unforseeable.
         | 
         | Not just any prod system... the one that distributed their
         | trusted updates to their entire customer base I believe.
        
           | donmcronald wrote:
           | Haha. I didn't follow it. After a bit of searching I had to
           | laugh. They got owned by the 'hunter2' meme and call it a
           | _highly sophisticated and unforeseeable attack_.
        
         | dragonwriter wrote:
         | > Would mark a major escalation in executive accountability...
         | Still no criminal charges, though.
         | 
         | If there was a criminal referral they wouldn't announce it and
         | any charges would usually sigbificantly trail civil enforcement
         | action, judging from every other SEC civil + DOJ criminal
         | action I've seen.
        
       | 666satanhimself wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | eganist wrote:
       | The more these happen, the more likely it'll be that the role of
       | CISO will need to be compensated commensurate to risk.
       | 
       | And report up to the CEO.
       | 
       | But it also depends on the nature of the action that's about to
       | come down. My guess is something to do with misrepresentation of
       | Solarwinds' security posture.
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | Or should the CISO be an employee of a federal agency?
        
           | ethbr0 wrote:
           | For systemically-important tech firms?
           | 
           | There should definitely be a government inspector general
           | empowered to poke around.
           | 
           | SolarWinds was a sophisticated operation, but there are a ton
           | of security orgs for very important companies that are just
           | inept, underfunded, or both. And absent mandated ability to
           | inspect, they're not going to get the harsh spotlight of
           | "unfuck this now" they deserve.
        
         | toomuchtodo wrote:
         | CISO needs to report to either chief risk officer (edit: who
         | reports to the board) or the board directly imho. Anyone else
         | (CXO) has incentive to apply pressure at odds with the role, or
         | not take compliance requirements or regimes seriously. Checks
         | and balances.
         | 
         | (thoughts and opinions my own, interim deputy CISO in finance)
        
           | eganist wrote:
           | Who would the CRO report to?
        
           | dvt wrote:
           | > CISO needs to report to either chief risk officer (edit:
           | who reports to the board) or the board directly imho.
           | 
           | I mean, this is all company bylaws, you can't seriously
           | legislate this. But in any case, C-execs _do_ have skin in
           | the game (particularly if investigated by the SEC). They 're
           | usually insulated, buy if non-compliant (or grossly
           | negligent), directors can be personally liable.
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-30 23:00 UTC)