The click of the angry mouse

[debgeisler]

Ars Technica reports on the story of how one stray mouse click by a trader at Credit Suisse created a DoS attack that choked the New York Stock Exchange.

The SEC has just fined Credit Suisse $150K for "failing to adequately supervise the development, deployment and operation of a proprietary algorithm, including a failure to implement procedures to monitor certain modifications made to the algorithm."

Someone ought to gold plate that mouse. Just sayin'.

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

this sounds like the plot to a novel I read recently.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

All thanks to a double click on an icon instead of a single click. Brilliant.

Oh, yes, and a programmer deciding single-handedly to implement an "improvement" and doing so, reportedly without any testing.

I'll double-click the brilliant icon on this one.

[benveniste.livejournal.com]

While the developer deserves his or her share of blame, I think the NYSE nailed it by calling it inadequte supervision and procedures. It doesn't take much of a Q/A plan to find and detect this sort of problem, nor much of a human factor's person to question the 'one-click commit' model on a real-money system.