October 16, 2018
Sudhakar Reddy Bonthu, a former manager at Equifax, was sentenced to 8 months of home confinement and fined $50,000 for insider trading related to Equifax’s massive data breach in 2017. As a member of a team tasked with quickly developing an online user interface for 100 million possible victims of a data breach at an unnamed company, Bonthu quickly guessed that the company in question was the one he worked for. In violation of company policy as well as federal law, Bonthu then allegedly bought a large quantity of Equifax stock, specifically put options, which allowed him to profit if the value plummeted within a two week period. Six days later, Equifax announced the breach and its stock value plummeted, netting Bonthu more than $75,000 in fraudulently gained profits. USAO NDGA
Tagged in: Cybersecurity and Data Breaches, Financial and Investment Fraud, Insider Trading, Securities Fraud,