This week, GE was the target of a major hoax aimed at disseminating false information about our tax policies and practices. This amateurish prank is now known to have been perpretrated by a team of tech-savvy troublemakers from US Uncut, which calls itself a "grassroots national movement against tax dodgers." They also admitted to have been working in cohorts with The Yes Men, a well-known, and rightfully despised, extremist culture jamming outfit.

Far from a light-hearted joke, this serious violation of both ethical journalism and U.S. copyright law created confusion and uncertainty for many. It also spread false hopes based on the lie that GE would return its' entire $3.2 Billion tax benefit. In addition, the lie- which propogated through dozens of normally-veritable news sources- sent our valued shareholders into a frenzy and our stock into a steep plunge.

In response to this incident, our Deputy Chief Information Security Officer acted swiftly to remediate the troubling situation. To avert any possibility of confusion or ecstatic rejoicing, he immediately moved to have the incriminating website taken down. As a result, the site and press release were made inaccessible for several hours.

Unfortunately, the Uncut digital charlatans have not backed down, and have correspondingly countered by finding new and more devious methods to amplify and project their confusing and overly-simplified fake message.

The Information Security Team at GE is continuously monitoring these, and other, developments in order to reassure our investors, shareholders and the general public that GE's physical servers and esteemed name are not manipulated or tarnished. We are nothing if not a brand that America can trust. And like our motto- imagination daily- our information security team is constantly innovating new ways to protect our precious assets. It's the GE way.

UPDATE (4/15/11): A fake site masquerading as a "National Survey:How Should GE Help America" is NOT real. This is merely a misleading game.

A diagram of GE's Secura-Chain® Security Protocol