Hacking BusinessWire and Making Millions

Two Estonian traders have been charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for hacking into the computer system of a business news service and stealing PR announcements before release. The SEC claims the hackers used the stolen information to make $7.8 million through illegal trading.

The SEC charged Lohmus Haavel & Viisemann with fraud for using a tool to crawl BusinessWire to find unpublished news releases. (Reuters story here.) Supposedly, employees within LHV used the information they found, though unavailable to the public in intent, to generate millions in profits.

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