Tag Archive for: black hat

SocGen Trader

Jerome Kerveil is the person at the center of the $7 billion dollar fraud at Societe Generale. His resume can be found here.

Kerveil had very basic computing and programming skills — Microsoft Office and Visual Basic. How did he manage to circumvent layers of highly sophisticated security software designed to prevent unauthorized activity?

It seems pretty obvious that he was not equipped to do black hat hacking. I doubt that he had the necessary technical skills to conduct a campaign of illicit, electronic trading over a period of many months.

Was SocGen’s security environment that poorly implemented? Was Kerviel working with someone else?

His actions sent shock waves through the world’s banking system. Some have speculated that his actions might have caused a global market meltdown earlier this week as SocGen sought to unwind its positions.

The power of one rogue trader.