Hackers with Apparent Investment Banking Background Target Biotech | Hacker News Reader

Hackers with Apparent Investment Banking Background Target Biotech

nytimes.com

43 pointsrjett13 comments

If you look at the biggest daily movers, often they are pharma companies that had a clinical trial published or an m and a.

It's a small enough space, however, and they may wind up like Steve Cohen.

You mean managing $10+ billion of their own money?

Well he did get a stern 'talking to' from the Feds a few times, so that must've been rough.

I mean, he had a bare $10B left after his fine! That SEC is so mean to the makers; jealous takers who think insider trading is illegal.

I wonder what contents of a senior executive's inbox are worth. I admire how thorough the hacking seems to be: executives, legal counsel, regulatory, and even scientists. It seems to me like they are out for as much information as possible. Good ol' fashioned corporate espionage.

And, less we miss the buried numbers: "Half of these companies fall into the biotechnology sector." I wonder what the other half points to?

It's worth a lot. M&A or quarterly results can move stock prices quite significantly and knowing about those before they are public will allow you to bet against it on the market.

How secure do you think the passwords of these health execs are? For the most part they are a bunch of 50/60 year old lifelong bureaucrats. I wouldn't expect them to be the most security-conscious computer users.

Ten bucks says the highest levels of protection some of these execs have is "what is the name of your dog" or "gl4x0sm1thkl1ne".

I'm not sure how they came to the conclusion that the hackers have a "banking background".

Is it that difficult to determine that hacking certain people's emails is likely to lead to insider trading tips? Do you need a "banking background" or "worked on Wall Street" experience for that? It's quite a leap.

The article says the hackers "can inject themselves seamlessly into email threads". Its hard to judge that without reading the specific conversation but I doubt they'll become public. The hackers may have simply spent some good time studying up on the industry, but having a banking background seems like a reasonable guess.

Given the track record of Investment Banks and massive felonies and market manipulation/rigging over the past several years, It's very easy to assume this sort of action was taken by current or former employees of a large Investment Bank.

I'm surprised that FireEye announced this while the hacking campaign is (presumably) still ongoing. I'd have thought it was a terrific opportunity for the FBI and SEC to team up and catch the perps in the act.

Or the phishing was staged to cover direct insider trading.

A hedge fund manager and a computer hacker meet at a cocktail party and get to talking...

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