According to a new research by cPacket Networks hackers can exploit high-frequency trading networks to pocket millions of dollars during stock market transactions. Rony Kay, a former IBM research fellow and founder of cPacket Networks, says that the networks used to complete stock market transactions in microseconds, are vulnerable to manipulation by hackers who can inject tiny amounts of latency into them. By doing so, they can subtly change the course of trading to their advantage.

Kay says that the increasing speed of networks creates many opportunities for cyber crooks as network monitoring technology can detect perturbations in network traffic happening in milliseconds, but when changes occur in microseconds, they're not visible.

cPacket has developed a proof of concept showing that these side-channel attacks can be used to create tiny delays in the transmission of market data and trades. By manipulating specific trading activities by several microseconds, an attacker could gain unfair trading advantage. And because the operation occurs outside the range of monitoring technology, it would remain invisible. "We believe that such techniques pose a substantial risk of creating unfair trading, if used by the wrong people," Kay says.