On Friday, the computer chipmaker Intel Corp blamed an internal error for a data leak that prompted it to release a quarterly earnings report early. It said its corporate network was not compromised. The company’s chief financial officer, George Davis, had earlier told The Financial Times that Intel published its earnings ahead of the stock market’s close on Thursday because it believed a hacker stole financially sensitive information from the site.
The company’s quarterly results were originally scheduled to be published hours later after the close of trading on Wall Street Thursday.
Early access to such information could benefit a stock trader.“An infographic was hacked off of our PR newsroom site,” the newspaper quoted Davis as saying. It quoted an unnamed company spokesperson saying Intel was notified that the graphic was circulating outside the company.
On Friday, Intel issued a statement saying it had determined that no hack occurred.
It said, “the URL of our earnings infographic was inadvertently made publicly accessible before the publication of our earnings and accessed by third parties. Once we became aware of the situation, we promptly issued our earnings announcement. Intel’s network was not compromised, and we have adjusted our process to prevent this in the future.”
The company’s stock price closed down more than 9 percent Friday.
