Preet Bharara Quotes

As the United States attorney in Manhattan, I have come to worry about few things as much as the gathering cyber threat.

From coast to coast, the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission have ensnared people not only at hedge funds, but at technology and pharmaceutical companies, consulting and law firms, government agencies, and even a major stock exchange.

I spoke bluntly about what I had seen in a little over a year as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. To the apparent surprise of many in the room, I observed publicly that insider trading appeared to be rampant.

Insider trading tells everybody at precisely the wrong time that everything is rigged, and only people who have a billion dollars and have access to and are best friends with people who are on boards of directors of major companies – they’re the only ones who can make a true buck.

Significant officials at publicly traded companies are casually and cavalierly engaged in insider trading. Because insider trading has as one of its elements communication, it doesn’t take rocket science to realize it’s nice to have the communication on tape.

The alarm bells sound regularly: cybergeddon; the next Pearl Harbor; one of the greatest existential threats facing the United States. With increasing frequency, these are the grave terms officials invoke about the menace of cybercrime – and they’re not understating the threat.