Fergie's Tech Blog

Societe General's 'Hacker' Trader Had Only Limited Computer Skills

Paul McDougall writes on InformationWeek:

The Societe General banker accused of operating a multibillion-dollar fraudulent trading scheme had only basic computing and programming skills -- a fact that deepens the mystery of how he managed to circumvent layers of highly sophisticated security software designed to prevent unauthorized activity.

On a copy of his resume that's widely circulating on the Internet, Jerome Kerviel lists Microsoft Office and Microsoft Visual Basic as his only IT-related skills. It also shows he performed some light programming work at Societe General that involved using Visual Basic to create macros for some of the French bank's trading and business applications.

While those skills might make Kerviel, a finance major, more computer-literate than many of his colleagues, they would hardly equip him for the kind of black hat hacking that would ordinarily be associated with a campaign of illicit, electronic trading that went undetected for months.

Kerviel's lack of advanced IT skills raises a pair of troubling possibilities. One is that Societe General's security systems were outdated or not properly maintained.

posted by Fergie @ 1/25/2008 01:32:00 PM