Empower unit settles SEC charges over suspicious activity reporting
Bloomberg
GWFS Equities Inc., a broker-dealer subsidiary of Empower Retirement, agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it failed to properly report detected cases of hackers gaining, or attempting to gain, access to participant retirement accounts.
Greenwood Village, Colo.-based GWFS did not admit to or deny the SEC's findings in agreeing to the settlement, the SEC said Wednesday.
From 2015-2018, GWFS was aware of increasing attempts by external hackers to gain access to the retirement accounts of individual plan participants, according to the SEC order. Moreover, GWFS knew that the hackers attempted or gained access by, among other things, using improperly obtained personal identifying information of the plan participants, and that the hackers frequently were in possession of electronic login information such as usernames, email addresses and passwords, the SEC said.