According to charges made public in August, the two young Ukrainians hacked into newswire services, accessed hundreds of corporate earnings announcements before they were released, and sold access to them to a group of 30 traders. Over a five-year period, the group spread across three states and five foreign countries netted more than $100 million in profits, according to the SEC.

Andrew Ceresney, the SEC’s enforcement chief, called the alleged trading scheme one of the “most intricate and sophisticated” the agency had ever seen. In another era, the suspect transactions—spread across roughly 60 accounts owned by individuals, funds and businesses with few obvious links—might well have gone undetected.

But in the era of Big Data, the agency has begun developing new weapons to uncover the patterns and connections that could lead to a trading ring. Squads of trained data analysts, known internally as “quants,” are embedded in many of the agency’s divisions, working alongside, or in place of, traditional investigators.

Read more: www.therecorder.com/id=1202744112287/Behind-the-SECs-Bet-on-Big-Data#ixzz3tsLru73q

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