Computer programmer arrested for Goldman Sachs theft
A former computer programmer at investment bank Goldman Sachs
has been charged with stealing computer codes used in the bank's
algorithmic trading systems.
The programmer,
Sergey
Aleynikov, a 39-year-old originally from Russia, was arrested
on Friday.
He is accused of uploading the 32MB of code to a server in
Germany.
Goldman Sachs would not comment.
Automatic trading software is increasingly important to
investment firms as the number of trading venues increases and the
volume of electronic trading grows.
PJ Di Giammarino, CEO at financial services think-tank JWG-IT,
said: "Because of the data war out there, it is more and more down
to IT systems and what messages you send them to tell them what to
do and how the messages instruct them to do it."
"These codes, which have allegedly been stolen are fundamental
to how Goldman makes money in electronic trading," added Di
Giammarino.
The heavy reliance on computer systems to control trades at
investment banks makes security a massive challenge.
In January last year
French bank Societe Generale lost £3.6bn following unauthorised
activity of a rogue trader who covered up fraudulent activity as a
result of his understanding of the bank's fraud control systems.
Paris-based Jerome Kerviel used his knowledge of automatic checks,
which are carried out on trades to check they are legitimate, to
avoid being found out. He risked billions by betting on future
trends in the stock market.