SEC

Staffers in the SEC's Trading and Markets Division left their computers totally unprotected from possible security attacks, forcing the organization to scramble to determine if any sensitive data was stolen, Reuters reported, citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the situation.

As it turns out, the trading and markets division is charged with ensuring that markets don't fall victim to cyberattacks.

Reuters also reports that the staffers attended the annual Black Hat Conference for hackers and brought the unprotected computers with them.

Soon after the security issues were identified, the SEC hired a third-party company and paid it "… Read more

The Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today accused Kris Chellam , a former senior executive at Xilinx, of illegally passing along nonpublic information to convicted Galleon hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.

Galleon used the tip to make approximately $978,684 in illegal profits as a result, according to the government.

In its report, the SEC says that Chellam turned over confidential company information in December 2006 that Rajaratnam used to short Xilinx stock.

The two were described as personal friends. Chellam, who had a "substantial investment in Galleon funds" according to the … Read more

The Securities and Exchange Commission didn't find any evidence that Facebook withheld pertinent information from investors prior to its initial public offering, Bloomberg reported today.

The commission began investigating the social network's initial public offering, or IPO, in May, after Facebook's stock dropped. The stock still hasn't recovered from that day, and is currently trading at around half of its $38 IPO price.

While the investigation isn't over, the commission has determined that Facebook did not act wrongly, an unnamed source told Bloomberg. The SEC is still looking at whether or not retail investors lost … Read more

The mask has come off on at least one member of Anonymous.

The Guardian.com has published a lengthy profile of the group and Jake Davis, a Scottish teenager who used the handle "Topiary" and acted as one of Anonymous' spokesmen before he was arrested in July 2011.

The profile offers readers little that we didn't already know about the group, although the author does give us some nice glimpses of a few prominent members of Anonymous and the well-known splinter group LulzSec.

Davis is almost exactly the sort of person many critics of the group expected … Read more

Amazon is heating up competition in the tablet sector with three new models of the Kindle Fire that are clearly aimed at wooing those who might buy a tablet from Apple.

The Amazon assault begins with a new $199, 7-inch model with an HD screen that doubles the built-in storage of the previous entry-level Kindle Fire to 16GB. Amazon has also doubled down on that product line with a larger, 8.9-inch model that has a 1,920-by-1,200 resolution, features 16GB of built-in storage, costs $299 and ships November 20. Topping out the line is a new 32GB model … Read more

Hacktivist collective AntiSec kicked off the week by publishing one million anonymized Apple UDIDs (Unique Device Identifiers) including device types and associated usernames, saying it was part of a 12 million large database that they'd snagged off an FBI agent's computer.

Online, techies scrambled to see if their devices were in the database dump, and look for clues as to where the alleged larger collection might have come from.

The FBI waited until the end of the day to issue an uncharacteristic, slightly sophomoric Tweet calling AntiSec's allegation TOTALLY FALSE and an oddly worded … Read more

The FBI said today that it does not know anything about a laptop that hackers say they compromised and that led them to millions of Apple iOS device user details, of which 1 million have been released on the Web.

"The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed," said an FBI spokesperson. "At this time there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data." Before the statement was released the … Read more