A team of Russian hackers has reportedly gained illegal access into the servers of Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal and other news outlets, and robbed information specifically trading tips, according to a report from Bloomberg on Oct. 17.
Citing four individuals familiar with this matter, it indicated in its report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission are carrying out a probe, which actually began over a year ago.
In fact, another report says the FBI has confirmed it has the knowledge on the hack and it is currently looking into the matter.
"We are aware of the Dow Jones intrusion and looking into it," Kelly Langmesser, FBI spokeswoman said.
However, Dow Jones has been quick to disprove the reported hacking.
“To the best of our knowledge, we have received no information from the authorities about any such alleged matter," told Dow Jones in a statement. "[W]e are looking into whether there is any truth whatsoever to this report by a competitor news organization.”
Smaller Breach
Recently, Dow Jones disclosed a breach of its systems, putting important financial data — specifically payment card and contact information — of 3,500 individuals at risk.
The company admitted there was infiltration in its systems way back August 2012 through July 2015.
While Bloomberg is uncertain if the attacks are interconnected, it reported that its sources described the breach is more serious than the incursion Dow Jones exposed a week ago.
In addition, two of Bloomberg's sources claimed the hackers attempted to collect information which includes stories being formulated for publication.
Not The First Time
In August, authorities brought charges against a Russian-speaking group of hackers from Ukraine for compromising MarketWired, BusinessWire as well as PR Newswire for allegedly stealing around 150,000 press releases and information containing data to predict the movement of the stock market.
The group of hackers purportedly generated over $100 million in trades with the use of unreleased earnings releases of various companies, including Boeing Co., Panera Bread Co., Oracle Corp. and Caterpillar Inc. via retail brokerage accounts.
