Nasdaq Hack Worse Than Reported; U.S. Spy Agency Asked To Decode Stock Market Cyber Attack

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Richard Falkenrath, a principal at the Chertoff Group and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor, discusses the October cyber attack on Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. The National Security Agency has joined the investigation of the attack amid evidence the intrusion by hackers was more severe than first disclosed.

--

Bloomberg

The National Security Agency, the top U.S. electronic intelligence service, has joined a probe of the October cyber attack on Nasdaq amid evidence the intrusion by hackers was more severe than first disclosed, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The involvement of the NSA, which uses some of the world’s most powerful computers for electronic surveillance and decryption, may help the initial investigators -- Nasdaq and the FBI -- determine more easily who attacked and what was taken. It may also show the attack endangered the security of the nation’s financial infrastructure.

“By bringing in the NSA, that means they think they’re either dealing with a state-sponsored attack or it’s an extraordinarily capable criminal organization,” said Joel Brenner, former head of U.S. counterintelligence in the Bush and Obama administrations, now at the Washington offices of the law firm Cooley LLP.

The NSA’s most important contribution to the probe may be its ability to unscramble encrypted messages that hackers use to extract data, said Ira Winkler, a former NSA analyst and chief security strategist at Technodyne LLC, a Wayne, New Jersey-based information technology consulting firm.

The probe of the attack on the second biggest U.S. stock exchange operator, disclosed last month, is also being assisted by foreign intelligence agencies, said one of the people, who declined like the others to be identified because the investigation is confidential and in some cases classified. One of the people said the attack was more extensive than Nasdaq previously disclosed.



Comments

[Cheyenne]

Waddell & Reed outta KC did all this shit. Don't you count on CNBC for accurate information?

[WSMassiv]

Stage setting. Oh crap the market just sold off! Dow down 1000 points in one day.... its got to be a hacker!! After all Dodd and Frank fixed the financial system!!

[Norman]

They are worried? They should be, especially those T.B.T.F. types, in all segments. One morning, they will awaken to find a zero balance in their accounts, won't be able to trace it, will probably blame the U.S.Government, that's why they bring in the NSA. Oh do these people think of ways to fleece. This time, they just may have met their match.

[Norman]

To the author of the same multi-comments above, are you speaking of yourself? Why do you post the same comment 4 times? Why do you compose in the manner that you do? I notice this type of writing in various comments on various blogs, but don't understand the motive?