Heartland Data Breach Case

There are three internal and one external governance mechanisms used for owners to govern managers to ensure they comply with their responsibility to satisfy stakeholders and shareholder’s needs. First, ownership concentration is stated as the number of large-block shareholders and the total percentage of the shares they own (Hitt, Ireland, Hoskisson, 2017, p. 317). Second, the board of directors which are elected by the shareholders. Their primary duty is to act in the owner’s best interest and to monitor and control the businesses top-level managers (Hitt, Ireland, Hoskisson, 2017, p. 319). Third, is the

Managers and shareholders are the utmost contributors of these conflicts, hence affecting the entire structural organization of a company, its managerial system and eventually to the company's societal responsibility. A corporation is well organized with stipulated division of responsibilities among the arms of the organizational structure, shareholders, directors, managers and corporate officers. However, conflicts between managers in most firms and shareholders have brought about agency problems. Shares and their trade have seen many companies rise to big investments. Shareholders keep the companies running

In accordance with ASC 855-10-25-3, An entity shall not recognize subsequent events that provide evidence about conditions that did not exist at the date of the balance sheet but arose after the balance sheet date but before financial statements are issued or are available to be issued. See paragraph 855-10-55-2 for examples of non-recognized subsequent events.

In large corporations the success or failure of the company is the responsibility of the board of directors. According to Richard DeGeorge, “The members of the board are responsible to the shareholders for the selection of honest, effective managers, and especially for the selection for the CEO and of the president of the corporation.” (p. 202). The board members have a moral responsibility to ensure the corporation is run honestly, in respect to its major policies, and to ensure the interests of the shareholders are satisfied. The next responsibility within a corporation is the responsibility management has to its board of directors. DeGeorge writes, “It must inform the board of its actions, the decisions it makes or the decisions to be made, the financial condition of the firm, its successes and failures, and the like.” (p. 202). The management of the corporation is morally obligated to

SAS No. 122 defines subsequent events as: “Events occurring between the date of the financial statements and the date of the auditor's report” (AICPA, 2015). Types of subsequent events include, but are not limited to:

The flip side of this issue is really the same thing. Management has a fiduciary responsibility to keep the company operational and profitable. While the ultimate decision lies in the hands of upper management, they would be wise to listen before making their final

While all of these technologies have enabled exciting changes and opportunities for businesses, they have also created a unique set of challenges for business managers. Chief among all concerns about technology is the issue of information security. It seems to be almost a weekly occurrence to see a news article about yet another breach of security and loss of sensitive data. Many people will remember high profile data breaches from companies such as T.J Maxx, Boston Market, Sports Authority, and OfficeMax. In the case of T.J. Maxx, a data breach resulted in the loss of more than 45 million credit and debit card numbers. In many of these incidents, the root cause is a lack of adequate security practices within the company. The same technologies that enable managers can also be used against them. Because of this, businesses must take appropriate steps to ensure their data remains secure and their communications remain

Confidentiality must be met in the storage, processing, and transmission of data in an organization. For example, we are going to look at a major recent data breach. On March 8, 2017, the US department of homeland security sent Equifax and notice to patch a vulnerability in versions of the Apache Struts software. On March 9, Equifax dispersed the information to applicable personnel. Although told to apply the patch, Equifax security team did not find

The executives are accountable to the board of directors. Instead of protecting the investors, the board enticed the culture of financial fraud in the company for selfish gains. It failed in its duties in keeping the executives in check.

On October 13, 2011, the SEC released guidance for registrants regarding disclosures for cybersecurity risks and

Usually in corporations there is a clear distinction between the people who take critical decision – Board of Directors – and the people who actually execute the decisions – management. In FBM, many managers were also part of the Board. This arises conflicts of interest. This should be avoided.

Data breaches happen daily, in too many places at once to keep count. But there is some huge breach versus a small one and we will take some examples from the biggest or most significant breaches of the 21st century to show how much risk or damage the breach caused for companies, insurers and users or account holders.

The auditor’s responsibilities are to audit annual financial statements and internal controls over financial reporting, and reports from the 10-Q quarterly reports. The auditor must also advice on new accounting pronouncements, and consolidating financial statements. (Intel Proxy Statement 2011, 48)

The principals (the shareholders) have to find ways of ensuring that their agents (the managers) act in their interests.

The shareholders will put mechanisms which will cost them to monitor managers to prepare financial statements and audit those statements. As the new