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Nasdaq Letter To Shareholders Explaining System Breach
No surprise: blame the US government on the information black out. Shareholders, and the investing public of course, learn last. Our question: when did clients learn?
From Nasdaq OMX letter to shareholders
Many of you may have read an article published in today’s Wall Street
Journal which reports that computer hackers have penetrated our network.
Below are facts behind the story:
• Through our normal security
monitoring systems we detected suspicious files on the U.S. servers
unrelated to our trading systems and determined that our web facing
application Directors Desk was potentially affected. We immediately
conducted an investigation, which included outside forensic firms and
U.S. federal law enforcement. The files were immediately removed and at
this point there is no evidence that any Directors Desk customer
information was accessed or acquired by hackers. Our trading platform
architecture operates independently from our web-facing services like
Directors Desk and at no point was any of NASDAQ OMX’s operated or
serviced trading platforms compromised.
• Subsequently, the
U.S. Department of Justice requested that we refrain from providing
notice to our customers until, at the earliest, February 14, 2011, in
order to facilitate the continuing investigation. NASDAQ OMX was
honoring the U.S. Government’s request to delay notification, but when a
story ran in the media on Saturday, February, 5, 2011, regarding a
hacking incident at NASDAQ OMX, we immediately decided, in consultation
with the authorities, that we must inform our constituents.
• We
continue to evaluate and enhance our advanced security controls to
respond to the ever increasing global cyber threat and continue to
devote extensive resources to further secure our systems. Cyber attacks
against corporations and government occur constantly. NASDAQ OMX remains
vigilant against such attacks. We have been working in cooperation with
the Government’s ongoing investigations and have received their
technical advice for which we are appreciative.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us if needed.
Adena Friedman
Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Chief Financial Officer
212-401-8730
Vince Palmiere
Vice President, Investor Relations
212-401-8742
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"We apologize, but we just can't tell the difference anymore between security breaches and the status quo manipulation we see every day."
Speaking of "Newspeak" Here is a post comparing Tony Blair (major tool) and George Galloway (consistent thorn in the side of Blair) speeches on Egypt, VIDEOS included:
http://fedupmontrealer.blogspot.com/2011/02/tell-what-politicians-really-think.html
Galloway is ^&*%ing AWESOMEIn line with Obama's campaign promise of being open and transparent. And the saga continues.
Because withholding pertinant information effecting the livelihood and business of your clients is always in their best interest.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2006/nf20060523_2210.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily
Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules
Now, the White House's top spymaster can cite national security to exempt businesses from reporting requirements.
President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.
.....and just think, the serfs keep scratching their heads wondering why nobody in the corporati goes to jail for brazen fraud !!
"Our 'advanced security controls' are not secure nor advanced. We will try to continue the status quo by allowing our primariy clientele to rape and pillage the retail investor. We have been working with the government to secure any damaging information about our operations to continue the status quo. As always, please don't hesitate to contact us if needed, our spam folder is still operational."
So was NASDAQ asked to sit on this until Valentine's Day so that the government could figure out how to leverage this event into enough votes for a new "comprehensive trading reform" act?
BTW, what's the emoticon for tinfoil hat? I forget...
<];-)
Ok ill say it... Internet kill switch bitchez
It all comes down on the 8th or the 14th of Feb?
They don't say when they were compromised; last week, last month?
And...the files on the "web facing director's desk" were a beach head; once you get access to a computer on the network, you can usually probe any machine on the network.
Imagine what the hackers are doing to your local banks and credit unions. You don't have to break into a safe anymore.
Anyone remember the Russian hacker who hacked into Citibank in 1994?
Guess who pays for the database dollars that are stolen?
Who bailed out Wall Street in 2008? Yeah, like that.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/whoare/notable.html
Your comments, ebworthen, are as silly as they are nonsensical.
The software they've been using for quite some time derives from Sungard, long owned by the Blackstone Group --- ergo, it was compromised long, long ago.
Together with that, they have joined their software to ClearForest, originally from Israel and funded by the same Israeli private equity group behind Narus, now owned by Boeing (CLearForest now resides under Reuters, and an examination of their BoD explains why --- as well as their interlocking directorships with Hakluyt & Company, where the name Frank Wisner, recently heard to extol the "exemplary virtues" of Hosni Mubarak and urge him to stay on and on in Egypt --- is further explanation).
Now ClearForest software is used at the FBI, various of the top intel contractors now making up the majority of the US intel budget (SAIC, etc.), as well as CIFA, CIA, etc., and was co-mingled with NORA from IBM (NonObvious Relationship Awareness), and is used by the banksters in their fallback plan to Total Information Awareness, now called the Regulatory DataCorp's G.R.I.D. (Global Regulatory Information Database, or Compliance-GRID).
They are usually, and routinely, hacking themselves, and passing it on "cyber threats", ad nauseum, when someone stumbles across it.
(What the bloody hell is this "cyber" stuff anywho? Wasn't that from the SF '60s????)
Time for the NASDAQ to upgrade to Windows 2000.
They can't, CD. Microsoft never finished porting 2000 to Alpha.
PLEASE don't tell me they are using OLD Alpha systems! PLEASE tell me you were kidding, right---Right---RIGHT!
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
Sorry for the mixed movie references, but I couldn't resist.
CD - please post more often. You are one of my favorites.
I guess NASDAQ's Windows 95 needs an upgrade.
And people would be able to tell the difference between a government-derived manipulation versus a computer compromise-based manipulation, how?
IF the FBI is doing a solid investigation of who done it, then the delay of public notification is a good thing. Spooking the individuals responsible is probably not a good way to ever figure out who they are.
Of course removing their files on the web system probably already knew "the jig was up"
Taking time off of the busy schedule of examining their own drivers for downloaded porn, and examining the voluminous amount of downloaded porn over at SEC, FDA and the Fed, the FBI is now hot on the trail of the "cyber threat."
Riiiiiiigggggghhhhhhtttt.....
What I find interesting is what they **don't** say - like, "The system is now clean!"...
This just raises more questions.
Like; who's servers are those NASDAQ-unrelated were the suspicious files was detected?
Anyway - here's the latest: NASDAQ Hackers Aimed At Corporate Bonds
does anyone know how to hack the HFT'S?
Depends on what you want to achive. Steal their money? (redirect command). Stop them from trading? (Just cut the electricity supply). Fuck up their algos? (Insert a worm). etc....
You'll find all the tools you need at SurgeForce.net.
But expect a visit by a couple of FBI representatives about two houres later...
I realize that these two statements are not mutually exclusive, but doesn't this start to smell? Won't this make a lovely setup to explain away the next flash crash?
Until the news could be leaked Saturday before the Superbowl? Transparency, indeed.
No...no...no...I think the "suspicious files on the U.S. servers" were named, Jada Fire, Jenna Jameson, Capri, etc., etc., and they just weren't familiar with those names.
Nothing really suspicious about them, other than the fact not a single one has ever returned my phone calls.
This is obviously the work of financial terrorists, who hate us for our financial freedoms. These financial terrorists are from within, or without, and work tirelessly to develop ways and means to attack us. This attempt was thwarted by a massive, highly sophisticated government security apparatus, which must now grow larger and more intrusive at greater expense to the people of this country, for your own protection. We must write and implement new regulations so that the software of our country’s financial system can be monitored to the degree to which every penny from every person can be monitored around the clock. DARPA is currently developing new technology identify the location of every child’s piggy bank and determine its contents and value in case it too needs to be protected from financial terrorists. In the event of another breach of our financial system POTUS can control each and every financial transaction to the degree necessary to protect this great country. Party on.
Sounds good to me. Big brother is my friend.
+1,000 ! ! ! !
Indeed! One might predict they will next come up with a....let's call it a "securitization process"....shall we....to further the trend in financial liberty for all, along with all those securitzed financial instruments, credit derivatives, and create thousands upon thousands of categories of them, and give anyone the death penalty who dares refer to the entire Ponzi-Tontine scam as peddling securitized debt.
Woe unto them.....and I too, welcome the overlord.
Dear Adena & Vince:
Love your stuff! IMHO, your entire sysytem has been roto-routered by the EU. Perhaps they are thinking about getting some of their capital back, if they can. Somehow. See you in the Hague!
Tyler: if Justice weren't served in the breach, we would have no Justice, at all.
I'll thouroughy examine this one, before any comment.
Sorry for the Mis spells. We are in pPort Douglas QLD setting up a SAT link through TelStra into a west coast server(isp) for the Super Bowl tomorrow. The cyclone knocked down a lot of communication temporarily. Enjoy the game everyone.
I doubt that Nasdaq is the only exchange that has been penetrated.
What would it take to bribe some system administrators at the CME to open up some back doors and allow some quant shops to get their own sneak peeks?
http://algofutures.com/blog/hackers-hit-nasdaq-everything-old-is-new-again
“The Complete History of Hacking”