A former Equifax executive faces insider trading charges for dumping nearly $1 million of company stock just days before the credit reporting company announced a massive data breach last summer.

The U.S. attorney in Atlanta said Jun Ying, 42, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on criminal charges. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil insider trading charges on Wednesday.

Ying, who was to become the company's next chief information officer, used confidential information to exercise his vested Equifax stock options and then sell the shares before the company publicly reported a breach that affected more than 145 million people, investigators said.

Because of the trades, Ying was able to avoid $117,000 in losses, the SEC said Wednesday.