Ukrainian Hackers Helped US Insider Trader Earn $100 Million in Illegal Profits

An unlikely union between a bunch of Ukrainian hackers and unscrupulous US stock traders yielded profits of up to $100 million through illegal insider trading. The hackers stole confidential press releases, which it then made available to traders, over the course of five years, US authorities have revealed.

Nine people have been charged with insider trading after they were found to have used around 150,000 fraudulently obtained press releases relating from Business Wire, Marketwired, and PR Newswire. It is believed that the traders would put together a ‘shopping list’ of releases for the Ukrainian hackers to obtain. The helpful hackers even went so far as to create video tutorials, instructing traders how to exploit the information held within the press releases.

“This is the story of a traditional securities fraud scheme with a twist – one that employed a contemporary approach to a conventional crime,” Diego Rodriguez, FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge, said at a news conference.

“This case illustrates how cyber criminals and those who commit securities fraud are evolving and becoming more sophisticated,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman in New Jersey added. “The hackers were relentless and they were patient.”

The data theft could spell the end for the traditional business news wire outlets, already bypassed by companies such as Google, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Tesla, which have taken to publishing important information to their own websites instead.

Thank you Reuters for providing us with this information.