Ride the Lightning

Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Morgan Stanley Adviser Sentenced for Hacking

December 29, 2015

SC Magazine reported on December 23rd that a former financial adviser at Morgan Stanley received three years' probation and will pay $600,000 in restitution for his illegal accessing of the firm's confidential client data "in order to use it for his personal advantage as a private wealth management adviser at the Bank," the FBI stated in a release.

Galen Marsh pleaded guilty in September to one felony count of exceeding authorized access to a computer and was sentenced last Tuesday.

Marsh used Morgan Stanley's network to access, without permission or authority, confidential information about clients serviced by wealth managers outside of his group, the FBI release stated. He used the identification numbers of colleagues to conduct approximately 6,000 unauthorized searches in the computer systems to gather account data on around 730,000 clients and then transferred the data to his home computer. To no one's surprise in cases like this, the FBI reported that he was in discussions with two competitor financial institutions regarding employment.

Beware the insiders.

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