In an unprecedented cross between 21st century cyberhacking and old-school, insider trading, four Atlanta men were indicted Aug. 11 for engaging in a $100 million international conspiracy to use stolen press releases for fraudulent stock exchanging.
Prosecutors say the Atlanta hackers, who are among nine individuals in the U.S. and Ukraine that face federal criminal charges for securities fraud, computer fraud and conspiracy, exploited sensitive financial information from some 800 undisclosed press releases out of the over 150,000 stolen from business newswires.
Since 2010, the defendants reportedly worked within network of fellow hackers and traders with ties to the U.S., Ukraine, Russia, France, Malta and Cyprus, to illegally acquire financial reports from Marketwired, PR Newswire and Business Wire. The traders profited from the premature news by buying and selling shares of major corporations such as Delta Air Lines Inc., Home Depot Inc., Panera Bread Co., Boeing Co., Oracle Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Caterpillar Inc. and dozens more, investigators say.
Federal authorities deem the incident the largest of its kind and have called it a “fraud scheme with a twist” that demonstrates current security challenges for a global economy linked by the Internet.
In addition to the nine who face criminal charges, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against 23 other people and companies in the U.S. and Europe in connection to the hacking group.