THE purported theft of a Goldman Sachs trading platform threatens to cost it millions of dollars, a prosecutor told a court, but so far the bank has not reported damage to its business. Questions were raised about the security of proprietary trading systems at a court hearing on July 4 for a former Goldman computer programer arrested on a charge of stealing the information, which was copied to a server in Germany.
If the stolen information, or trading code, is allowed to go to a competitor who can start trading with it, "the bank itself stands lose its entire investment in creating this software to begin with, which is millions upon millions of dollars," warned US prosecutor Joseph Facciponte, according to a transcript of Saturday's proceeding.
He added that because of the way this software interfaces with the various markets and exchanges, the bank has warned it could be used to "manipulate markets in unfair ways."
