Madoff Fallout Could Boost Tech Oversight

With investors still counting the cost of Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud, the scandal may have wide-ranging technology implications as regulators come under intense pressure to tighten their grip on investment firms.

Madoff, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, was recently charged with securities fraud in what SEC officials are describing as a multibillion-dollar "Ponzi scheme." With questions now being asked about how the government repeatedly failed to notice the alleged scheme, it is almost inevitable that regulators will push for much greater visibility into financial firms' data.

Even the SEC itself has admitted that it needs to get its house in order. In a startling mea culpa, the commission's outgoing Chairman Christopher Cox acknowledged the SEC's shortcomings, describing "multiple failures over at least a decade" related to the Madoff case. ...