A fashion tech founder was sentenced to five years in federal prison for her involvement in a $300m “fraud scheme” spanning from 2019 to 2025, the Manhattan US attorney’s office announced on Thursday. Christine Hunsicker, 49, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.
Hunsicker, the founder and ex-CEO of CaaStle Inc, had pleaded guilty this March to one count of securities fraud in relation to a scheme that “defrauded hundreds of investors”, authorities said. Her attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hunsicker, a “well-known entrepreneur and businessperson in the fashion-tech industry”, touted CaaStle as a fast-growing business with a valuation of more than $1.4bn, the southern district of New York prosecutor’s office said. But Hunsicker knew that the company was reeling “in financial distress with dwindling cash and significant expenses”.
IT & DATA SECURITY (MITIGATING THE “INSIDER THREAT”)
As seen in the TD Bank case, an employee with too much “access” can sell your customer data to syndicates.
- Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP): Employees should only have access to the specific folders and databases required for their current task.
- Access Revocation: Have a “Termination Checklist” that ensures all digital access (Email, VPN, Banking) is revoked within 60 minutes of an employee resigning or being dismissed.
- System Logs & Audit Trails: Enable “Read/Write Logging” on your server. If a customer’s data is leaked, you need to know exactly which login accessed that record and at what time.
- Encryption at Rest: Ensure that sensitive files (like your customer ID numbers or payroll spreadsheets) are encrypted so that if a staff member copies them to a USB, they cannot be read.