Financial firm fined $850k for violating SEC cyber rules

The SEC charged Equiniti Trust Company for failing to safeguard client assets after two cyber incidents in 2022–2023: a business email compromise that led to roughly $4.78M wired to overseas accounts (about $1M recovered) and an incident where stolen Social Security numbers were used to create fake accounts and liquidate $1.9M (about $1.6M recovered). Equiniti reimbursed affected customers but was found to have violated regulations and agreed to an $850,000 penalty; the report highlights the increasing impact of BEC and related fraud on financial firms.