U.S. to Charge That Hackers Tapped Early Deal News

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/us-to-charge-that-hackers-tapped-early-deal-news-20150811-00023

By Dow Jones Business News
August 11, 2015

U.S. authorities are preparing to unseal sweeping charges as early as 
Tuesday against a group of traders and computer hackers who allegedly 
schemed to get early access to press releases about mergers and 
acquisitions and trade on them before the deals were made public, people 
familiar with the matter.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and New Jersey plan to announce charges 
against more than a half dozen people with securities fraud and other 
charges in connection with the alleged scheme, which authorities believe 
netted tens of millions of dollars in illicit profits, the people familiar 
with the matter said.

The case may be the largest of its kind, these people said, and 
illustrates the increasingly bridged lines between cybertheft and 
traditional financial crimes.

The hackers allegedly infiltrated the systems of news-wire services that 
publish press releases about mergers and acquisitions and obtained 
information from statements about unannounced deals, the people familiar 
with the matter said. The traders would then use the information to make 
early trades on the deals, exploiting the small window of time between 
press releases being uploaded into the system and the public announcement 
of the deals.

[...]



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