Eyeing Cyber Risks, SEC Seeks 3.5% Budget Boost

After a two years of flat funding, the Securities and Exchange Commission is asking Congress to boost its 2019 budget by 3.5%. And perhaps the SEC’s main reason for the request is to help the commission tackle cyber risks and fortify its technological capabilities.In the budget request it release...

By David Katz • Feb. 13, 2018

How Fake News May Lead Us to a Cyberwar

Fake news — we’ve all heard the phrase over the past couple of years. However, we sometimes struggle to grasp the far-reaching extent of its impact.Joe Carson With the next generation moving to online and social media as their go-to news source, and a good chunk of what is put out on social media...

By Joe Carson • Feb. 5, 2018

Apple, Cisco Move Into Cyber-Insurance Market

Call it iCoverage. Apple announced Monday it is teaming up with Cisco Systems to help businesses that primarily use equipment from the technology companies to insure themselves against the risk of cyber-attacks.The joint venture, which also includes insurer Allianz SE and insurance broker Aon PLC...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 5, 2018

CFPB Said to Be Icing Probe of Equifax Breach

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is reportedly backing off its investigation into last year’s massive security breach at Equifax, fueling Democratic lawmakers’ concerns that the Trump administration is seeking to gut the consumer watchdog.Citing people familiar with the matter, Reuters re...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 5, 2018

U.S. Trade Panel Overturns Bombardier Tariffs

In an unexpected setback for the Trump administration’s “America First” trade policy, the U.S. International Trade Commission said Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier could import its CSeries planes without huge tariffs.The Commerce Department had imposed a nearly 300% tariff after finding ...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 26, 2018

Delaware Suit Targets Painkiller Supply Chain

Delaware has accused drug distributors and pharmacies of facilitating the abuse of prescription painkillers in a lawsuit that targets the entire opioid supply chain.U.S. states, counties and cities have repeatedly sued drugmakers for pushing addictive painkillers through deceptive marketing. In i...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 22, 2018

Deregulation Push Targets Payday Loan Rules

The new leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun the process of potentially unwinding one of the agency’s signature rules aimed at curbing payday lending.The CFPB is now under the control of White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, who once called the bureau a “sick joke...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 18, 2018

Apple Reveals Widespread Hardware Bugs

“Meltdown” and “Spectre”: They sound like a doomsday scenario and a super villain from a James Bond movie, respectively. But according to an an announcement by Apple yesterday, they represent microchip flaws that “apply to all modern processors and affect nearly all computing devices and operatin...

By David Katz • Jan. 5, 2018

Petrobras Settles Investor Class Action for $2.9B

In one of the largest securities class action settlements in U.S. history, Petrobras said Wednesday it had agreed to pay $2.95 billion to investors who sued over losses resulting from the Brazilian state-owned oil company’s corruption scandal.The settlement, if approved by a federal judge in New ...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 3, 2018

Report Faults FAA Oversight of Regional Airlines

The Federal Aviation Administration’s tools for detecting financial risk at regional air carriers are inadequate and inspectors do not use them effectively due to a lack of financial knowledge, an internal investigation has found.Congress had asked the the Transportation Department’s inspector ge...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 2, 2018

Feds Propose Easing of Oil-Drilling Safety Rule

The Trump administration has extended its rollback of environmental regulations to offshore drilling, proposing revisions to safety standards adopted in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster.The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said the changes to the ...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 1, 2018

Kmart Fined $32.3 Million Over Rx Drug Fraud

Kmart has agreed to pay $32.3 million to settle allegations that it overcharged federal health programs by failing to report the true prices of prescription drugs.The settlement arose from a 2008 whistleblower lawsuit brought by James Garbe, a pharmacist at a Kmart in Ohio who discovered that the...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 28, 2017

Mitsubishi Says Top Exec Knew of Data-Rigging

Mitsubishi Materials has reported that the former head of its cable-making subsidiary allowed possibly inferior products to be shipped to customers for about eight months.An interim investigative report released Thursday said former Mitsubishi Cable Industries President Hiroaki Murata, who resign...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 28, 2017

Caterpillar Fined for Unneeded Railcar Repairs

A unit of Caterpillar Inc. has agreed to pay a $5 million criminal fine to settle charges that it cheated customers by performing unnecessary repairs of freight cars.United Industries, part of Caterpillar’s Progress Rail Services unit, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a misdemeanor count of depositi...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 8, 2017

Digi Outdoor Execs Accused of $2.3M Fraud

The former chief executive and the CFO of Digi Outdoor have been charged with defrauding investors in the digital billboard company, siphoning off more than $2 million to pay for their own personal expenses.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said CFO Shannon Doyle participated in the fra...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 7, 2017

Utility Says Wipro ‘Botched’ Software Upgrade

Electricity and gas utility major National Grid has accused India’s Wipro of botching the implementation of a software system for its back-office operations, resulting in “crippling” problems after the system went live.Wipro was allegedly paid more than $140 million for its work on the project, w...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 4, 2017

SEC Accuses Canadian of $15 Million ICO Fraud

In the first case to be filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s new cybercrime unit, two residents of Canada have been charged with misappropriating $15 million from investors through a fraudulent initial coin offering.The SEC on Monday said the PlexCoin offering was a “full-fledge...

By Matthew Heller • Dec. 4, 2017

Supply Chain Tech Tweaks

Like many companies, Lawson Products, an industrial distributor of maintenance and repair products, operates its own supply chain and is a part of other companies’ supply chains. In both cases, technology makes a big difference.Lawson, a $275 million Nasdaq-listed company, sells things like nuts,...

By David McCann • Nov. 29, 2017

DoJ Sues to Block AT&T’s Bid for Time Warner

Igniting what could be a titanic court battle with political overtones, the Trump administration has filed suit to block AT&T’s proposed $105 billion takeover of Time Warner in a rare challenge of a “vertical” merger between different kinds of companies.The complaint filed by the Department o...

By Matthew Heller • Nov. 21, 2017

Hurricanes Highlight Need for Data Disaster Recovery

In the wake of the hurricanes that hit Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico this summer, businesses have recovered at varying speeds. Some returned to their normal workflow in days, others have yet to do so. One key factor affecting downtime in situations like this is the presence and quality of a dis...

By Jonathan Stone and Laurance Selnick • Nov. 20, 2017

Celebrity Endorsements of ICOs May Be Illegal

Celebrities who endorse digital coin offerings may be violating U.S. securities laws, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in its latest warning about the increasingly popular funding mechanism.Boxer Floyd Mayweather, actor Jamie Foxx, and socialite Paris Hilton are among the celebrities w...

By Matthew Heller • Nov. 3, 2017

Enemy Cyber Campaigns Target Private Sector

To say that the planning of the D-Day invasion by U.S., British, and other Allied forces was a complex endeavor would be an understatement, to say the least.A U.S. army pamphlet on the Normandy invasion sketches the results of the planning succinctly: “A great invasion force stood off the Normand...

By David Katz • Nov. 2, 2017

ITC Backs Crackdown on Solar Panel Imports

The U.S. has moved a step closer to imposing restrictions on imports of low-cost solar panels in a trade battle that has pitted panel manufacturers against installation companies and users.The International Trade Commission recommended Tuesday that President Donald Trump impose tariffs of up to 3...

By Matthew Heller • Nov. 1, 2017

Exxon Settles Air Pollution Case for $303M

Exxon Mobil has agreed to spend $300 million on facility upgrades to settle charges that eight of its plants in Texas and Louisiana released thousands of tons of harmful pollutants into the air.U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials said Exxon will install and operation air pollution cont...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 31, 2017

Giuliani: Trump Has Long Way to Go on Cyber Risk

Rudolph Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s informal cybersecurity adviser, told a cyber risk conference in New York City last week that the administration has a long way to go before it can safely protect U.S. corporations as well as the civilian side of the federal government against hackers.Rud...

By David Katz • Oct. 31, 2017