Investment Info
Data breaches will increasingly be used to gain investment information.
Most data breaches have resulted in the loss of money or other financial instruments and identity details, such as account numbers, passwords, account balances and personal identity details. Few have involved the loss of material-confidential information that could give an investor an important edge in buying or selling stock or other investments. While this was an element in the massive breach of J.P. Morgan Chase — where insiders allegedly made off with more than $100 million — it has been fairly uncommon.
In 2015, two major newswire distribution services — plus a third smaller service — suffered a data breach. Typically public companies upload press releases detailing their upcoming earnings announcement or merger and acquisition announcements to such a newswire service in advance of their public announcement. An attacker could potentially get access to these files to make a substantial amount of money by acting on the information before it is made public. This actually happened, giving financial windfall to 30 or more individuals, including a hedge fund manager. At least two of the newswire services suffered attacks dating back five years, giving criminals access to over 150,000 press releases during that period. Because the services lacked the ability to effectively detect active network attackers, the criminals could carry out their schemes without fear of being seen.