The top securities regulator in the U.S. said yesterday that its computer system had been hacked last year, giving the attackers private information that could have been exploited for trading, the New York Times reported today. The Securities and Exchange Commission said that it was still investigating the breach of its corporate filing system. The system, called Edgar, is used by companies to make legally required filings to the agency. The agency said it learned in August that an incident detected last year “was exploited and resulted in access to nonpublic information.” It said that the security vulnerability used in the attack had been patched shortly after it was discovered. The hacking, it said, “may have provided the basis for illicit gain through trading.”
