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BAE retracts hedge fund hack allegation

Well, this IS awkward, seeing as Wall Street formed a group to stop it happening again

BAE Systems Applied Intelligence has retracted allegations of a nasty attack on a hedge fund it floated on Canadian television a couple of weeks ago.

The firm today told Bloomberg was just a scenario that it used for “illustrative” purposes. BAE has promised not to scare us all with hypotheticals any more.

That promise is all well and good, save for the fact that “news” of the hack travelled swiftly, and widely enough that The Center for Financial Stability announced “the formation of a public / private partnership for the financial services community” staffed by lots of serious folks dedicated to making sure things like the imaginary hack couldn't possibly happen to other financial institutions.

The “incident” also generated a slew of global coverage, featuring buckets of expert comment to the effect that this kind of thing either happens all the time or could happen any minute now.

The latter remains true … assuming BAE's hypothetical was accurate. Even if it wasn't, that the mere mention of an unspecified attack on a high value target can provoke such a response suggests a worrying new way to spook users. And the markets. ®

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