Dealbreaker – Last month, BAE Systems’ Paul Henninger breathlessly reported that a “major” U.S. hedge fund had fallen victim to a spear phishing cyberattack after an apparently dull employee clicked on link he or she shouldn’t have. This was very bad news: The attack went on for two months and totally fucked up the hedge fund’s high-frequency trading strategy—which vulnerability did not stop the hackers from wanting to steal it, which they also did, according to Henninger. “It was having a material impact on performance across the portfolio,” he said, forcing the hedge fund’s board to “review” it.
Now, this was all very convenient for BAE Systems, whose business it is to sell network-security services to, among other entities, hedge funds. And the FBI and something called the Center for Financial Stability thought it worth getting together to do something about it after “news about cyber-attacks against a major unnamed hedge fund.”
