CFTC eyes rule to address hacker manipulation

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.argusmedia.com/pages/NewsBody.aspx?id=845092

Argus Media Ltd
30 Apr 2013

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) may initiate a rule 
to address market manipulation from social media cyber-attacks after the 
stock market took a momentary dip last week in response to a false news 
report from a hacked Twitter account.

CFTC chairman Gary Gensler said today that the commission is working to 
put out a concept release which he described as a draft regulatory 
framework that could presage a formal rulemaking for “risk controls and 
system safeguards for automatic trading environments.”

On 23 April an account on online messaging service Twitter operated by 
the Associated Press was accessed by hackers who falsely reported to the 
account's nearly 2mn followers that President Barack Obama had been 
injured in an explosion at the White House. The news spurred immediate, 
precipitous drops of roughly 1pc in several leading US securities and 
commodities markets, though markets bounced back once the message was 
found to be a hoax.

Gensler said that in the wake of that attack he wants to issue the 
concept paper “in the next month to two months” and get input from the 
public. Gensler spoke during a hearing of the commission's Technology 
Advisory Committee.

[...]

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