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

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

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

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

Companies Lose Ground to Cyber Criminals

In the battle between organizations and cyber criminals, the bad guys are winning. The financial consequences of hacks have again shot up by 23% this year, equaling the increase seen in 2016, according to new research.Ponemon Institute conducted a benchmark study of 254 organizations, all with mo...

By David McCann • Oct. 25, 2017

How to Buy Cyber Insurance

Businesses around the globe are making cyber risk among their highest priorities. Insuring companies against data breaches is becoming an enormous industry, even as its promising role and impact in security operations continues to unfold. While North American policyholders dominate the market, Eu...

By Greg Reber • Oct. 12, 2017

Quality-Control Scandal Engulfs Kobe Steel

Japan’s Kobe Steel on Wednesday added fuel to the fire of a scandal over the quality of products, saying it was investigating possible data falsification involving iron ore powder that was shipped to a customer.The disclosure of the iron ore problem follows Kobe’s admission on Sunday that it had ...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 11, 2017

What Wildfires, Hurricanes Can Teach About Risk Reduction

The Northern California wildfires. Harvey. Irma. Maria. We shudder at the thought of the devastation these natural disasters have inflicted. And such high-cost disasters aren’t just happening in the United States. In Mexico, strong earthquakes have left hundreds of people dead. Across South Asia,...

By Erik R. Peterson • Oct. 11, 2017

Bitcoin Trader Accused of $600K Ponzi Scam

The CEO of a New York hedge fund has been charged with operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors whom they had solicited to participate in a fund for trading Bitcoin.The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Nicholas Gelfman, chief executive of Gelfman Blueprint Inc. (GBI), raise...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 22, 2017

CPA Accused of Illegal Trades on Drug Firm News

A former senior accountant at Celator Pharmaceuticals and three others have been charged with trading on inside information about two market-moving announcements by the company, realizing $411,000 in illicit profits.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the accountant, Evan Kita, tippe...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 1, 2017

Why Stand Alone Against Cyber Risk?

While most companies now have insurance policies that cover specific cyber risks, a growing number are getting their cyber liability coverage as part of broader policies that cover other property-casualty exposures, according to survey results released on Thursday by the Risk and Insurance Manage...

By David Katz • Aug. 24, 2017

Fraudsters Fare Worse When Whistles Blow

Finance executives that “cook the books” not only have to worry about being exposed by a whistleblower, they and their companies also are more likely to be hit with financial penalties — and likely to pay far higher ones — when a whistleblower is involved in a government enforcement process.A new...

By David McCann • Aug. 16, 2017

Uber Settles FTC Case Over Privacy Violations

Uber has agreed to submit to regular audits of its privacy safeguards to settle allegations that it failed to monitor employee access to customers’ personal information and reasonably secure sensitive consumer data stored in the cloud.The settlement announced Tuesday concludes a U.S. Federal Trad...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 15, 2017

Six Ways to Curb the Costs of a Data Breach

For those paying attention, 2017 has provided a steady and impressive litany of data breach victims, from video games to hotels to burrito shops to nearly every American voter. This is a direct continuation of the trend from 2016, in which roughly 40% of breached companies had under $100 million ...

By Rotem Iram • Aug. 2, 2017

Halliburton Hit for $29.2 Million in FCPA Case

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Halliburton Co. with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company has agreed to pay $29.2 million to settle the case.According to the SEC, Halliburton violated the FCPA’s books and records provisions, as well as the law’s inte...

By David McCann • July 27, 2017

SEC Delivers ‘Jolt’ to Initial Coin Offerings

Digital coin offerings are now likely to come under stricter scrutiny as a result of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.In a report issued Tuesday, the SEC cautioned market participants that federal securities laws apply to offers and sales of digital assets by “virtu...

By Matthew Heller • July 26, 2017

Fraud Charges for Ex-Oil Company Finance Execs

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Penn West Petroleum and three of its former top finance executives with fraud, alleging they improperly moved hundreds of millions of dollars from operating expense accounts to capital expenditure accounts.The SEC said former CFO Todd Takeyasu, f...

By William Sprouse • June 29, 2017