The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which recently levied millions of dollars in fines against major corporations for allegedly allowing data theft by cyber attackers, has found itself similarly victimized by an international insider trading ring.

On Tuesday, the SEC announced that it had brought civil charges against defendants, including individuals in Ukraine, California, Russia and Korea as well as two business entities in Hong Kong and Belize, for allegedly hacking into the SEC's own EDGAR corporate filing database from May through at least October 2016, and trading securities on the stolen data.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced parallel criminal charges Tuesday in the scheme against two Ukrainian hackers and others. The indictment was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark. The EDGAR  system contains annual and quarterly earnings reports and corporate filings containing confidential financial information on publicly traded companies.