Billion dollar bet on rate cut pays off

From the man that nearly broke Britain:

It may go down as one of the great currency bets in Australian dollar history  – a $US1 billion gamble on a Reserve Bank  rate cut that has delivered a $US19 million ($18.65m) profit in 36  hours.

The beneficiary, if you believe the rumour mill, is investment legend George  Soros.

Best of all, it appears the 82-year-old American pulled off the deal three  times, all with different foreign exchange brokers in Asia, for a tidy profit of  almost $US60 million.

Cyber-attackers penetrate Reserve Bank networks

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s computer networks have been repeatedly and successfully hacked in a series of cyber-attacks to infiltrate sensitive internal information, including by ­Chinese-developed malicious software.

The RBA is sufficiently concerned about these risks that it has had a private security firm carry out “penetration testing”, or authorised hacking, of its computer networks to assess the integrity of its digital defences.