Exploiting Financial Information Exchange (FIX) Protocol?

The Financial Information Exchange Protocol (FIX) has become the standard for pre-trade and trade communication messaging worldwide within the Financial Markets. According to the FIX protocol website, FIX has experienced tremendous growth across Foreign exchange, Fixed income and Derivative markets.(FIX Protocol Ltd, 2012)Financial markets have become reliant on FIX messaging between brokerage firms to help grow business. FIX carries sensitive financial information worth billions of dollars for multiple financial instruments on a single connection line and has become essential when tracking an order from origination to completion. Exploiting FIX protocol and how businesses receive and acknowledge messages would have huge implications on the capital markets. There has been little to no focus on securing FIX protocol within the financial community. This paper will explore and hopefully shed some light on the strengths and vulnerabilities associated with the FIX protocol.