• US stock market daily report (June 24, 2015, Wednesday)

    Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] announced an investigation of a group of hackers suspected of breaking into corporate email accounts to steal information to trade on, such as confidential details about mergers. Cyber attacks U.S. government agencies and companies inside the USA is on the rise, raising awareness of an increase in data breaches.

    Information requested by the SEC includes data on actual cyber intrusions as well as attempted cyber attacks. Other information requested by the SEC includes known tactics hackers used to lure employees into giving up email passwords, known as "spear phishing" or "credential harvesting".

    John Reed Stark, former head of Internet enforcement at the SEC and now a private cybersecurity consultant said it is an "absolute first" for the SEC to approach companies about possible breaches in connection with an insider trading probe.

    Stark said, "The SEC is interested because failures in cybersecurity have prompted a dangerous, new method of unlawful insider trading."

    The inquiry by the SEC is a parallel probe by the U.S. Secret Service which was spurred by a December 2014 report from FireEye, Inc. (FEYE-Nasdaq) about a sophisticated hacking group dubbed "FIN4."

    FireEye said they believe the FIN4 hackers could be from the United States or Europe since their English was flawless and they had a deep understanding of how the financial markets and investment banking work.

    Per FireEye, a Milpitas, California-based Internet security firm, the hackers targeted healthcare and pharmaceutical companies due to the increased volatility of their stocks, increasing their profit potential. During one cyber intrusion, the hackers sought information about Medicaid rebates and government purchasing decisions.

    According to a FireEye report, FIN4 has tried to hack into email accounts at over 100 companies, in search of confidential information on mergers and other market-moving events, since mid-2013. Over 60 publicly traded companies in the biotechnology field plus, other healthcare-related fields including drugs, hospital equipment and medical instruments were targeted by hackers.

    Laura Galante, manager of threat intelligence at FireEye said, "What was insidiously brilliant was that they could inject themselves into email threads and keep gleaning information. They really knew their audience."

    At least eight publicly traded companies have been contacted by the SEC for details of their data breaches.

    Contributed by Millennium Traders
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