Cyber attackers earned a $4.1 million stock market payday after getting an early peek at unpublished earning results in an SEC database, the Wall Street Journal reported today. According to an SEC complaint, the hackers accessed the SEC’s corporate filing system for more than six months and placed trades based on information obtained from 157 earnings releases.

The hackers used one of the oldest tricks in the book – phishing emails sent to agency employees – to infect computers with malware and steal the needed information. They also exploited a vulnerability in the SEC’s system for storing public filings.

The incident shows that the SEC, which stores highly sensitive corporate information, is vulnerable to the same cybersecurity threats wreaking havoc on banks, public companies and exchanges.

Here’s a link to the SEC press release: https://bit.ly/2HfdruN