U.S. Tightens Security for Economic Data

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/business/labor-dept-tightens-security-for-market-sensitive-data.html

By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
The New York Times
July 16, 2012

WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday morning at precisely 8:30, after a 10-second 
countdown synchronized to the Naval Observatory’s atomic clock, a Labor 
Department official flipped a master switch in the agency’s 
battened-down pressroom and computers blurted out the monthly Consumer 
Price Index.

Until that moment, the market-sensitive data was guarded with 
launch-code secrecy, a precaution against anyone who might try to take 
advantage of an accidental or a surreptitious leak to gain an insider’s 
edge in the financial markets, turning milliseconds into millions.

Yet for all the rituals of high security, government officials have 
become increasingly nervous that their process is vulnerable, and are 
now overhauling it.

After a yearlong review that included scrutiny by anti-hacking 
specialists from Sandia National Laboratories, officials at the Labor 
Department revoked the credentials of a few little-known news 
organizations that appeared to serve financial clients rather than the 
public at large.

The government has also ordered other media groups to replace their 
computers in the lockup room with new computers under tighter controls.

[...]

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