Russian hackers stole trading information from Dow Jones

In what can only be described as a major security lapse, it seems a few hackers from Russian Federation successfully broke into the servers of Dow Jones, Inc. and swiped a few key secret trading data before it was made public.

“We are looking into whether there is any truth whatsoever to this report by a competitor news organization”, Dow Jones said. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, the hackers were reportedly seeking information to trade on prior to its release to the public.

According to a Bloomberg report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been investigating the cyber hack for the past year. Bloomberg said it was not clear if the information stolen included news stories, or embargoed financial data that had not yet been published. Dow Jones publishes the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s as well as providing information through a number of services including the widely read Dow Jones Newswires. Bloomberg said it was not clear if the two incidents were related.

Dow Jones said last week that hackers had breached its computer systems, looking for contact information to send fraudulent solicitations. That case involved PR Newswire, Marketwired, and Warren Buffet-owned Business Wire.

Dow Jones says in its annual report that its Factiva service provides global business content to about 1.1 million active users.

And retail brokerage Scottrade faced a cyberattack earlier this month. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment.

Dow Jones had said that there was unauthorized access to its systems at certain times between August 2012 and July 2015.