NSA getting into bed with Banks to help them fight hackers

Banks are having such a rough time these days. If it isn’t customers getting pissed off over being charged to use their bank debit cards it’s those nasty hackers breaking into their computer systems and making off with all kinds of information.

While there isn’t much that will be done about the first problem, after all who gives a crap about customers anyway, it seems that the National Security Agency, which is some super secret arm of the US military, has decided that they are perfectly suited to help those Wall Street banks fight back against those evil hackers.

This is all part of a larger attempt by these incredibly powerful and rich banks to get the US military and private defense contractors to fight off all those horrible cyber criminals out there. Claiming that hackers could possibly take up residence within the computer systems used by banking companies the banks say they could then disable trading systems, create fake crashes which could lead to real ones, and of course the good old stealing of money via huge wire transfers.

At this point the co-operation is still in discussion stages with NSA director Keith Alexander saying that the talks are just about them sharing information with banks about malicious software making the rounds. Additionally the NSA is working with the NASDAQ to improve their defenses against cyber attacks after it was found that their network had been broken into last year.

Apparently also on the list of companies that are supposedly perfect targets for hackers are oil companies, gas companies, technology companies, and defense contracting companies.

via Reuters