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SEC accuses Flagstar of deceiving investors about cyber breach

Wednesday 18 December 2024 13:21 CET | News

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed settled charges against Flagstar due to the company making false statements about a cybersecurity attack on its network in 2021. 

According to the SEC’s order, the agency found that Flagstar released misleading statements regarding a 2021 cybersecurity attack on its network, named the Citrix Breach, which caused encryption of data, network disruptions, and the exfiltration of the personally identifying information (PII) of nearly 1.5 million individuals, including its users.

SEC accuses Flagstar of deceiving investors about cyber breach

The SEC’s findings

The SEC underlined that the risk factors in Flagstar’s 2021 Form 10-K, filed on 1 March 2022, underlined that cybersecurity attacks may interrupt the company’s business or compromise the sensitive data of customers. However, Flagstar did not disclose that it had already gone through cybersecurity attacks leading to the exfiltration of sensitive information and that the Citrix Breach, in fact, interrupted its business.

Furthermore, the SEC’s order highlighted that in a 17 June 2022 notice to customers released on Flagstar’s website and a Form 10-Q filed on 9 August 2022, the company further deceived customers regarding the scope of the Citrix Breach. At that time, Flagstar mentioned that there was unauthorised access to its network and customer data, however, the company knew that the breach caused several issues on its network systems and that customer PII was exfiltrated. Additionally, the agency found that Flagstar did not maintain disclosed controls and processes concerning cybersecurity incidents developed to ensure that relevant details to evaluate materiality were thought by disclosure decision-makers to enable timely verdicts about possibly demanded disclosure.

The consequences of Flagstar’s actions

After confirming the violation of Section 17(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 13(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-13, and 13a-15 thereunder, the SEC imposed a USD 3.55 million and demanded the company to cease from committing or causing any abuses of these provisions. Flagstar neither denied nor admitted the findings of the SEC’s order, however, it agreed to the terms required by the agency. 

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Keywords: regulation, financial data, data breaches, cybersecurity, cybercrime
Categories: Fraud & Financial Crime
Companies: Flagstar, SEC
Countries: United States
This article is part of category

Fraud & Financial Crime

Flagstar

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SEC

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