The United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a case against a group of traders and a tandem of hackers for stealing non-public information about corporate earnings to make more than $100 million in a case of hacking for trading.
The group consisted of 16 individual stock traders, 14 businesses, and two Ukrainian hackers. They all got served civil charges, plus an additional federal criminal charge for nine of them, including the two hackers.
Five out of the nine served with criminal charges were already captured in their homes in the United States, and is now in the custody of authorities. The two other traders and the two hackers are presently living in the Ukraine, but international arrest warrants are being issued for them.
The two Ukraine-based hackers have gone inside and peaked into U.S. Newswire services namely: Marketwired, PR Newswire, and Business Wire. The hackers made a copy of the press releases that was sent to the newswire services. These press releases contain valuable data such as earnings, and these were sent to a network of traders before they were made available to public. These kind of scheme gives the traders advantage over others in deciding how to handle their stocks depending on the information they have.
Companies that were stolen from includes Panera Bread Co., Caterpillar Inc., RadioShack, and Edwards Lifesciences.
According to CNN, Federal Agents have seized the bank and brokerage accounts of those that allegedly made profit out of the leaked news releases. They are also taking measures to seize two properties, a Pennsylvania shopping center, a Georgia apartment building, and a houseboat, all together worth another $5.5 million.
The threat of cybercrime hand-in-hand with financial crime is imminent. Hackers can easily gain access to millions of funds in just a few clicks.
It is a challenge now for the Stock Market and other online-based monetary companies to ensure that hackers won't find any loopholes in their programs and softwares.