The former CIO of Equifax has been sentenced to prison for selling his stock in the company before news of its 2017 data breach was publicly announced.
Jun Ying, the former Chief Information Office of Equifax U.S. Information Solutions, sold his shares in the company for over $950,000 ten days before the company admitted that its data had been accessed by hackers. He was sentenced to four months in prison and ordered to pay roughly $170,000 in fines and restitution.
“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. Pak.
The Equifax data breach compromised the names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, and addresses of over 145 million Americans. Ying is the second employee of the company to be found guilty of insider trading related to the incident.
According to reports, Ying decided to sell his shares after researching the impact of the 2015 data breach of rival company Experian on its stock prices.
Read the U.S. Department of Justice’s statement on the case here.
