SEC begets better BEC sec

According to an article on CFO.com by Howard Scheck, a former chief accountant of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement: 

"Public companies must assess and calibrate internal accounting controls for the risk of cyber frauds. Companies are now on notice that they must consider cyber threats when devising and maintaining a system of internal accounting controls."

A series of Business Email Compromise frauds (successful social engineering attacks) against US companies evidently prompted the SEC to act. Specifically, according to Howard:

"The commission made it clear that public companies subject to Section 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act — the federal securities law provision covering internal controls — have an obligation to assess and calibrate internal accounting controls for the risk of cyber frauds and adjust policies and procedures accordingly."

I wonder how the lawyers will interpret that obligation to 'assess and calibrate' the internal accounting controls? I am not a lawyer but 'assessing' typically involves checking or comparing something against specified requirements or specifications (compliance assessments), while 'calibration' may simply mean measuring the amount of discrepancy. 'Adjusting' accounting-related policies and procedures may help reduce the BEC risk, but what about other policies and procedures? What about the technical and physical controls such as user authentication and access controls on the computer systems? What about awareness and training on the 'adjusted' policies and procedures? Aside from 'adjusting', how about instituting entirely new policies and procedures to plug various gaps in the internal controls framework? Taking that part of the CFO article at face value, the SEC appears (to this non-lawyer) very narrowly focused, perhaps even a little misguided. 

Turns out there's more to this:

"As the report warns, companies should be proactive and take steps to consider cyber scams. Specific measures should include:

• Identify enterprise-wide cybersecurity policies and how they intersect with federal securities laws compliance

• Update risk assessments for cyber-breach scenarios

• Identify key controls designed to prevent illegitimate disbursements, or accounting errors from cyber frauds, and understand how they could be circumvented or overridden. Attention should be given to controls for payment requests, payment authorizations, and disbursements approvals — especially those for purported “time-sensitive” and foreign transactions — and to controls involving changes to vendor disbursement data.

• Evaluate the design and test the operating effectiveness of these key controls

• Implement necessary control enhancements, including training of personnel

• Monitor activities, potentially with data analytic tools, for potential illegitimate disbursements

While it’s not addressed in the report, companies could be at risk for disclosure failures after a cyber incident, and CEOs and CFOs are in the SEC’s cross-hairs due to representations in Section 302 Certifications. Therefore, companies should also consider disclosure controls for cyber-breaches."

The Securities Exchange Act became law way back in 1934, well before the Internet or email were invented ... although fraud has been around for millennia. In just 31 pages, the Act led to the formation of the SEC itself and remains a foundation for the oversight and control of US stock exchanges, albeit supported and extended by a raft of related laws and regulations. Todays system of controls has come a long way already and is still evolving.