US SEC probing Yahoo over breach

SAN FRANCISCO — The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating a previously disclosed data breach at Yahoo, Inc., the company said in a filing.

Yahoo said in a November 2016 quarterly filing that it was “cooperating with federal, state and foreign” agencies, including the SEC, that were seeking information and documents about a “security incident and related matters.”

The SEC is investigating whether two massive data breaches at Yahoo should have been reported sooner to investors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

An SEC spokesman declined to comment. A Yahoo spokesman directed Reuters to the company’s November filing.

Yahoo has faced pointed questions about exactly when it knew about a 2014 cyber attack it announced in September that exposed the e-mail credentials of half a billion accounts.

In December, Yahoo said it had uncovered yet another massive cyber attack, saying data from more than one billion user accounts was compromised in August 2013.

The SEC issued requests for documents in December, as it probes whether the technology company’s disclosures about the cyber attacks complied with civil securities laws, the people said, according to the Journal.

Securities industry rules require companies to disclose cyber breaches to investors. Although the SEC has long-standing guidance on when publicly traded companies should report hacking incidents, companies that have experienced known breaches often omit those details in regulatory filings, according to a 2012 Reuters investigation. —