InfoBytes Blog
SEC Announces Two Enforcement Initiatives Designed to Combat Cyber Threats
On September 25, the SEC announced the expansion of its Enforcement Division’s focus on cyber-related misconduct with the creation of a Cyber Unit and a Retail Strategy Task Force. The Cyber Unit will focus on areas such as (i) market manipulation schemes involving electronically-transferred false information; (ii) data breaches intended to obtain nonpublic information; (iii) distributed ledger technology and initial coin offering violations; (iv) misconduct through the use of the dark web; (v) retail brokerage account intrusions; and (vi) cyber-related threats targeting trading platforms and other critical market infrastructures. The Cyber Unit will complement the SEC’s internal assessment of its cybersecurity risk profile. (See previous InfoBytes coverage here.) The goal of the Retail Strategy Task Force will be to “develop proactive, targeted initiatives to identify misconduct impacting retail investors [and] apply the lessons learned from those cases and leverage data analytics and technology to identify large-scale misconduct affecting retail investors.”