Hedge IT Blog

Just last week, we talked about network security threats and the best practices your firm can employ to keep information safe. You probably think that your security efforts should be focused on the outside - on external risks. But the reality is that the biggest security threat to your firm could be the person sitting right next to you.

It was mentioned by both eSentire’s Steve McGeown and Eze Castle’s Steve Schoener during our recent webinar that internal threats to security are just as likely to occur when it comes to cybercrime and security breaches.

A recent Wall Street Journal article, IT Protects the Company, Who Protects IT, included statistics from a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of executives about economic crimes. Several jarring statistics were provided, including:

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Taking a page from the Cloud Forum (quite literally), today we look at the top three winning reasons hedge funds are gravitating towards the cloud.  Not surprisingly, these reasons center around increased efficiencies, improved technology environment and cost savings.

Scalable, Flexible and Available
The cloud offers firms the option of scalability without the serious financial commitments required for infrastructure purchase and maintenance. With cloud services there is no vendor lock-in or implied commitment beyond duration so firms have the flexibility to easily evolve their IT environment.

Another benefit is the ability to seamlessly add more users and/or computing resources to match the firm’s requirements. A hedge fund private cloud can deliver the infrastructure, bandwidth and network resiliency to accommodate business requirements for high speed access, storage and applications.

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As part of our ongoing thought leadership, we often host educational webinars on a variety of topics relevant to hedge fund operations and technology. For our most recent webinar, we decided to dive deeper into the topic of security, as it still remains one of the biggest priorities and concerns for hedge funds.

Speaking on the webinar were two great security experts: Steve McGeown, VP of Marketing and Product Management at eSentire, and Steve Schoener, VP of Client Technology here at Eze Castle Integration.

Below is a short summary of the key points addressed by our expert speakers.

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More than 100 hedge fund technology and operations professionals attended our recent Hedge Fund Cloud Summit in New York, and we're pleased to report that the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Not only was the Cloud Summit the first event of its kind, but it was also where we debuted Eze Castle TV! Some of our attendees were brave enough to face the camera and tell us what they thought of our event. Watch the video below to see what they had to say!

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As any regular Hedge IT reader knows we are passionate about cloud computing and its use at hedge funds. We are also committed to being a constant source of information and education.

So…drumroll please… We are excited to unveil the newest member of the Eze Castle Integration thought leadership family – Cloud Forum!

On the Cloud Forum you will find rich information:

• What is Cloud Computing
• Cloud Architecture
• Operating in the Cloud
• Cloud Security
• Cloud Computing Dictionary A-Z
• Cloud Resources: Articles, Videos and Events

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The atmosphere in the room was one of excitement and anticipation. Not something you’d expect for a conference dedicated to cloud computing? Think again.

We hosted our first-ever Hedge Fund Cloud Summit earlier this week at the Sofitel New York, bringing together over 100 operational and technology professionals from the investment industry for what truly was an exciting day.

Event hosts Bob Guilbert and Vinod Paul kicked off the afternoon by offering their perspective on the changes within the hedge fund market relative to cloud computing and why it has steadily become a reliable technology option for firms of all sizes and strategies. Five years ago, most hedge funds were involuntarily relying on traditional on-premise infrastructures marked by intricate Comm. Room build-outs and heavy upfront capital expenditures. The average cost for servers, storage, networking and other equipment? Two hundred to five hundred THOUSAND dollars.

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What would we do without technology in our daily lives? Technology has evolved over the years helping us with the way we communicate with one another to the mediums we use to obtain and share information.

Check out what Eze Castle's London employees had to say in the video below.

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The security threat landscape continues to evolve, and security through obscurity is no longer (and probably never was) an ideal approach to protecting the sensitive data of the hedge fund industry. A recent study by IBM found that cyber threats are expanding with 62% of managers believing that cyber threats are an increasingly serious risk to business.

The report found a 27% rise in cyber security vulnerabilities between 2009 and 2010 and noted that “early in 2011 officials at the International Monetary Fund revealed that it had been targeted by a sophisticated cyber attack – a threat that was considered so serious, the World Bank severed the computer ties through which the two organisations shared information.”

Another example cited was that “in June 2011 a black-hat hacker group known as LulzSec (or “Lulz Security”) targeted the website of the CIA in the US using a denial-of-service attack. This was the latest in a string of similar attacks against a range of government and public sector bodies.”

While these two examples occurred at large organizations, the risks facing smaller firms (read: hedge funds) are just as real. To that end, we recently had eSentire into our Boston office to speak with a group of hedge fund CTOs about the security landscape and their managed security technology. Feedback on eSentire’s offering and approach was positive and the spark for this tech spotlight article.

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On most days if you asked what I was doing on that exact day two years prior I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but today is different. Today is the second birthday for Hedge IT, our sweet, informative blog. So I know exactly what I was doing two years ago – I was writing and posting our first Hedge IT article, aptly titled “Welcome to Hedge IT.”

Sticking with the theme of ‘welcome to…’ and giving a node to our upcoming Hedge Fund Cloud Summit, today’s post is a welcome to the changing world of IT – now that the business world is going to the cloud.

Paradigm shifts are commonplace in the IT world. When talking to an IT veteran about cloud, he/she will likely reflect on the move from centralized computing (mainframes/mini-computers) to decentralized computing (Windows NT/Novell) and now back to centralized computing with the cloud.

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It’s the most talked about trend in technology these days. Then again, can it even be considered a trend anymore? Cloud computing has evolved into a credible technology solution for hedge funds and other financial services firms, allowing them to reduce their upfront capital expenditures and focus their priorities on investment decisions and other operational tasks.

But with so much buzz in the industry about the cloud, it seemed fitting to organize an event dedicated solely to this topic. Alas, it’s finally here.

In just two short weeks, Eze Castle Integration will be honored to host the 2012 Hedge Fund Cloud Summit – a half-day conference in New York City designed to dive deep into the critical areas of cloud computing that hedge funds and investment firms are compelled to think about on a daily basis.

The Cloud Summit will bring together more than 100 of the investment industry’s best and brightest technology and operations professionals and will feature expert speakers from some of the leading hedge funds, prime brokers and technology application partners in the industry.

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