Stock Market Woes Result in Increased Cyber Attacks
October 29, 2008 – 12:20 am
by Doug Pollack
During this period of economic uncertainty and financial decline, there concurrently appears to be an increase in cyber attacks using malware.
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that:
“Ever since the start of September, when the financial crisis hit in earnest, something odd has happened on the days the stock market experienced its biggest losses: The number of new pieces of malware detected has spiked. On the days when the market gains, the amount of malware detected drops. It’s happened eight times over the last month. ”
Investors and traders need to be particularly wary during this time of financial turbulence, especially when logging onto their brokerage and trading accounts, or dealing with any email correspondence from these institutions.
2 Responses to “Stock Market Woes Result in Increased Cyber Attacks”
This is quite interesting. Since Wall Street is such a HUGE part of our economy, you’d think the big guys on top would make an extra effort to encrypt their data, scan for malware, etc. Especially since investors and traders are, now more than EVER, checking the status of Wall Street.
There really should be an easier way, and it will be pretty costly, and since the financial state of the nation isn’t exactly prime for all new software, it might not happen in the immediate future… but these are things that need to be closely monitored. Especially for the next potential recession.
By Jackie on Oct 29, 2008
I nearly blogged on this exact article. It’s strange that the malware spikes on big loss days. If I were an investor, and I’m not (thankfully, in this financial crisis), I’d be cashing in my stocks left and right, concerned whether or not any of my money was safe with the malware risk.
By Jackie on Nov 17, 2008