This is a look inside the current security of modern stock exchange networks in the US known as “the stock market”. The financial networks are an ecosystem that has grown both outside of and within the limits of the Internet to trade billions of dollars daily in the US alone. It is as unique as any internal infrastructure and a fascinating study of evolution where operators push systems to their limits for performance in a drive to generate revenue from their best customers (high-frequency traders) while operating within a regulatory framework that is changing rapidly. It’s a hacker’s sci-fi paradise!