Information Empire - Wall Street’s Largest Cyber-Attack

This wasn’t a typical bank heist. It was a raid on the very mechanism that drives the global economy. A group of hackers and rogue investors created a "digital time machine" that allowed them to know the future of the stock market hours before anyone else.

The Architecture of Deception: The "Hacker-Seller" Model
At the heart of the operation was the mysterious EggPLC (identified in investigations as Valeriy). Rather than trading on the stock market himself, he created a service platform for corrupt traders.
The process functioned as follows:

• Infiltration: Hackers (Ivan Turchynov, Oleksandr Ieremenko) breached the systems of PR Newswire, Business Wire, and Marketwired using SQL Injection attacks and sophisticated phishing campaigns targeting employees.
• Theft of Press Releases: They stole earnings reports and news on mergers and acquisitions that were already in the system but awaiting publication (so-called embargoed news).
• Distribution: The stolen data was uploaded to a server accessed by recruited traders. In exchange for these "tips," traders paid EggPLC a percentage of their profits (typically 20% to 40%).

The Philadelphia Pastor and "Miraculous" Profits
One of the most shocking figures in the SEC investigation was Vitaly Korchevsky. As a respected pastor and former Morgan Stanley manager, he knew how to avoid arousing suspicion. However, the scale of the profits became impossible to hide.
According to SEC documents, the group controlled over 30 different brokerage accounts. Over several years, they executed thousands of trades based on more than 150,000 stolen press releases. Their total documented profit exceeded $100 million, though estimates suggest the actual figure could be significantly higher.

The Technological Arms Race
The investigation revealed that the hackers were exceptionally skilled. Whenever news agencies identified a security flaw and patched it, the hackers needed only a few days to find a new way in.
They utilized RATs (Remote Access Trojans), which allowed them to view agency employees' desktops in real-time. This gave them a direct look at exactly what an editor saw while preparing a press release for publication.

An International Game of Cat and Mouse
A pivotal moment occurred in 2012 with raids in Kyiv. Despite the U.S. Secret Service securing evidence, local corruption in Ukraine allowed the hackers to evade punishment. Ivan Turchynov, instead of facing a cell, ended up under the "protection" of the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine), where he likely continued his activities under state patronage.
It wasn't until Vadim Iermolovych made a mistake (vacationing in Mexico in 2014) that the Americans were able to successfully extradite a member and break the group's solidarity. Iermolovych became a key witness who helped investigators decipher EggPLC’s financial structure.

The Second Life of Oleksandr Ieremenko (The SEC EDGAR Scandal)
The most unsettling chapter involves Oleksandr Ieremenko. After the original group disbanded, he did not stop. In 2019, the SEC brought new charges against him-this time for hacking into the EDGAR system (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval), the official database of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission itself.
It was as if a burglar, after escaping from a bank, broke into the vault of the very police department hunting him. Ieremenko remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted cybercriminals list to this day.

Summary: Is the Market Safe?
The EggPLC case exposed a fundamental weakness in the stock market: information asymmetry. In the era of algorithmic trading, possessing information just five minutes before others allows for millions in risk-free gains. While news agencies have spent millions on cybersecurity, Ieremenko’s history proves that hackers are always looking for the next weak link-whether it’s a PR agency or the heart of the market regulator itself.

Resources:
https://www.google.com/search?q=https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2015-163
 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Press Release 2015-163.
 Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, "Nine People Charged in Largest-Ever Hacker Insider Trading Scheme".
FBI Most Wanted - Cyber: Artem Radchenko and Aleksandr Ieremenko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2cbdv9POW0&list=PL9kFGLVJiMMYmnLmC-yhXXD6859kHtrZy&index=4