Warner Wants SEC to Probe Yahoo's Obligation to Inform Investors About Data Breach

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is urging the SEC to investigate whether Yahoo fulfilled its obligation to inform investors and the public about the 2014 data breach that affected more than half a billion user accounts (see 1609220046 and 1609230026). In a Monday news release, which included the text of a letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White, Warner said, “Yahoo’s September filing asserting lack of knowledge of security incidents involving its IT systems creates serious concerns about truthfulness in representations to the public. The public ought to know what senior executives at Yahoo knew of the breach, and when they knew it.” He said the company may have known about the breach this summer and failed to file a Form 8-K about it, as required. Warner, co-founder of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, also asked the SEC to assess the adequacy of current disclosure thresholds since "fewer than 100 of approximately 9,000 publicly listed companies have reported a material data breach since 2010." Yahoo didn’t comment.