Categories: U.S. Federal Law, Cybersecurity, Enforcement
In a surprising development in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC’s”) ongoing securities fraud case against SolarWinds Corp. (“SolarWinds”) and its former chief information security officer (“CISO”), Timothy Brown, all three parties have petitioned the judge for a stay pending final settlement. Until the SEC’s four commissioners can vote to approve the settlement, the parties have requested the stay until at least September 12, 2025.

As we previously reported, in October 2023, the SEC sued software developer SolarWinds and its former CISO, alleging that SolarWinds misled investors about a series of heavily publicized cyberattacks that targeted the company, culminating in the December 2020 Sunburst malware attack. In addition to alleging securities fraud and violations of SEC reporting provisions, the SEC also alleged that SolarWinds violated Sarbanes-Oxley internal control provisions.

In July 2024, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer granted SolarWinds’ and the company’s former CISO’s motions to dismiss on most claims. A single set of fraud claims survived concerning alleged misstatements and omissions in a “Security Statement” that was published on SolarWinds’ website. The Security Statement described the company’s various cybersecurity practices, which the SEC alleges painted an incomplete and misleading picture. As recently as June 2025, the SEC indicated it was ready to try the case and filed a motion in opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss the remaining claim.

On July 2, 2025, all three parties—the SEC, SolarWinds and the company’s former CISO—sent a joint letter to the judge indicating they had reached an agreement in principle to settle the case. Any settlement is subject to approval of the four SEC commissioners. As noted above, the parties’ joint letter requested a stay until at least September 12, 2025 to give the SEC commissioners time to review the matter. Two of the sitting commissioners have been critical of the SEC’s case.

It is difficult to speculate what the final terms of settlement may be. Unrelated to this case, with the change in presidential administration, the SEC has dismissed numerous enforcement cases targeting the cryptocurrency industry on the grounds that the cases were imprudently brought. It is possible this philosophy has now been extended to the SolarWinds case, and the SEC may seek to drop the case entirely. It also is possible that this movement by the SEC staff is more in line with other settled cases, and could simply entail reduced charges and remedies acceptable to all parties. The fact that the SEC enforcement staff still needs approval by the SEC commissioners may imply that this latter scenario is more likely. Like any plaintiff, the SEC does from time to time settle enforcement cases after they have entered litigation for any number of reasons.

US man who hacked SEC’s X account to spike Bitcoin price sentenced to prison
Eric Council Jr., 26, was sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release on Friday for participating in the hack of the official X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing in a press release. Council and other hackers took over the SEC’s X account in 2024 to falsely announce that the agency had approved Bitcoin exchange traded funds, or ETFs, which shot up the price of the cryptocurrency before later dropping.

According to the DOJ, Council and his co-conspirators performed a SIM swap attack against the cellphone account of a person who had access to the SEC’s X account, which allowed the hackers to take control of their phone number. From there, the hackers reset the password of the SEC’s X account, granting them control of the account.

American business service behemoth Conduent has confirmed the January data breach resulted in hackers stealing customer details, although there’s no evidence that the info was leaked online.

The attack hit the company in mid-January this year, Conduent confirmed on a FORM-8K filing with the SEC. Attackers penetrated digital defenses and accessed a “limited portion” of Conduent’s environment.

Several of Conduent’s clients experienced disruption in the initial days of the attack. For example, Wisconsin’s Department of Children and Families said the outage impacted payees who receive their payments via an electronic transfer system.

Defense contractor gets hacked – what's the worst that could happen

Live Nation Entertainment, also known as Ticketmaster, has submitted an official Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),

À la suite d’une cyberattaque ayant touché SolarWinds Corp., la SEC a déposé une action civile contre la société qui aurait trompé les investisseurs sur ses pratiques en matière de cybersécurité. Cette action civile met en évidence, d’une part, les mauvaises pratiques adoptées par la société, et d’autre part, l’importance accrue que la SEC porte sur les informations en matière de cybersécurité que les sociétés publient à l’attention des investisseurs.

An “unauthorized party” hijacked the cell phone number of the person running the SEC’s X account before taking over the social media feed and posting messages.

In a statement on Monday, an SEC spokesperson explained that two days after the January 9 account takeover, the government agency spoke to its telecom carrier and discovered that someone “obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent ‘SIM swap’ attack.”

The X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which is deciding whether to approve bitcoin ETFs, "was compromised," the regulator told CoinDesk.

The ransomware group AlphV reported a victim to the SEC for failing to report a cybersecurity incident, placing government regulators in a precarious position.