Russian hackers hacked Dow Jones and seized insider information



    According to Bloomberg, a group of hackers (presumably Russian) carried out a successful attack on the servers of Dow Jones & Co. As a result, the attackers managed to steal sensitive financial information, which may be of interest to participants in exchange trading, before its publication.

    What happened


    The FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Secret Service are investigating the incident. As it became known to journalists, investigative actions have been ongoing for at least a year.

    Dow Jones publishes a number of financial media outlets (such as The Wall Street Journal) and distributes subscription financial information through its own services, such as Dow Jones Newswires.

    More than a week ago, representatives of Dow Jones announced the discovery of a hacker attack, as a result of which attackers managed to steal payment and contact details of about 3,500 customers. However, according to Bloomberg, this incident is significantly less serious than the invasion that is being investigated by US intelligence.

    Moreover, there is no evidence of whether these two attacks are connected. According to Bloomberg sources, hackers managed to gain access to critical financial information, including articles that have not yet been published. According to people familiar with the investigation, intelligence officials are actively consulting with financial market participants to understand how hackers can use stolen information. While there is no data on this. There is also no information about what exactly indicates involvement in hacking hackers from Russia.

    Dow Jones CEO William Lewis, while announcing a smaller attack that steals client information, said he considered the incident a “broader campaign involving other victim organizations.”

    A new front to the insider trading battle


    Such a serious approach to investigating the theft of information that could potentially be used to gain a competitive advantage in trading on the exchange clearly shows that cyber attacks have become an effective tool in the hands of manipulators. Hackers steal sensitive information and sell it to traders.

    According to the Dow Jones annual report, one of the company's paid services called Factiva provides business information to more than 1.1 million active users. “Factiva gets information from more than 4,000 sources, even before its publication by these sources.” Accordingly, gaining access to data that has not yet been published, but which will clearly affect the balance of power in the market (for example, announcements of mergers and acquisitions) is an attractive target for cybercriminals.

    The attack on the Dow Jones is not the first example of how hackers hack information services to obtain financial data. In August 2015, U.S. authorities arrested Russian-speaking hackers who broke into the news terminal systems PRNewswire, Marketwired, and Businesswire in order to obtain insider information for trading on the exchange. Allegedly, the criminal group in several years of its existence was able to earn in this way more than $ 100 million dollars.



    The arrest of one of the accused Vitaly Korchevsky

    In order to successfully counteract insiders and identify dishonest transactions, representatives of law enforcement agencies have to work hard and come up with original methods of investigation. So one of the largest cases of insider trading was revealed by compiling graphs illustrating the relationship of the defendants - we wrote about it here .

    How news affects the market


    Quite often, news from politics or economics has a major impact on stock trading. The clearest example of such a situation is the announcement of the imposition of foreign sanctions against Russia. Then the shares of many Russian companies have seriously fallen in price.



    In addition, in the past, stocks of Russian technology companies on foreign exchanges became cheaper during the news about the possible strengthening of Internet regulation in the country by the state.

    At the same time, speculative trading "on the news" is not the easiest task, which is not suitable for inexperienced investors. This fact illustrates the situation with Apple stocks, which are not alwaysseriously grow or become cheaper after the release of new company gadgets. This makes it a risky venture to buy shares in this company with an eye to their mandatory growth or fall after the next presentation.

    How to buy shares of technology companies


    Earlier, buying shares of technology companies at foreign stock exchanges was not so simple - the Russians needed to open accounts with foreign brokers, who were not always eager to work with clients from our country.

    At the end of November 2014, the situation improved - the St. Petersburg Exchange launched trading in foreign securities. Now, Russian investors can buy shares of foreign companies, which are among the 50 most liquid organizations from the S&P 500 index. The pioneers included technology companies such as Apple, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Facebook, Google and Intel.

    You can get access to trading on the St. Petersburg Exchange through ITinvest - for this you need to leave a request on the site . Also company expertshelp you choose goals for investing.

    Related posts:


    Also popular now: