New York (HedgeCo.net) – With details trickling in about how the sophisticated Stuxnet computer worm derailed years of work on Iran’s nuclear program, many seasoned observers are left to wonder what might happen if such a powerful weapon were ever turned against the nearly $2 trillion hedge fund industry.
Most hedge funds have protected themselves from external security breaches for years, according to hedge fund adviser Alphaserve Technologies. In the opinion of Arup Das, CEO and CTO of the New York firm, managers need to protect themselves not only from the outside in, but rather from the inside out.
“The emphasis of hedge funds’ cyber security should be on the information that leaves the firm as much, if not more, than that which is coming in,” Das said. “The best hedge funds track every minute piece of information from the moment it enters their system and maintain detailed documentation on its every movement. It is constantly surprising to us that even some of the most recognized names in this industry do not meet this institutional standard of technological governance.”
Another way to derail destructive attacks like the Stuxnet worm would be to better secure the very desktops that attackers could use as nodes. Hedge fund Chief Technology Officers can accomplish this by leveraging technologies like network access protection, host based firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spyware, and ring 0 protection software while running them in conjunction with network access control technologies.
The key, says Das, is to make sure that corporate desktops are protected with the latest updates, patches and constant monitoring of internal communications. This way, most anomalous behavior will be detected. Many of the most secure companies are also utilizing ‘virtual desktop’ technology which removes all information from individual desktops and instead makes users remotely access data which is centralized and locked down in corporate datacenters.
“Technologies like virtual desktop not only take data security to the next level and prevent the proliferation of worms, but they directly address the added security threats of employees working and accessing data from home,” Das said. “Again, though, we only see a handful of hedge funds adopting these practices. It may sound superfluous to some hedge fund managers, but many of our clients have raised millions in assets as a direct result of their demonstrating to investors that they could track, document and ensure the security of information as it moves through the firm.”
Editing by Alex Akesson
For HedgeCo.net
alex@hedgeco.net
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