Nasdaq site hit by denial of service attack

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 15 Feb 2012 at 08:38

Websites of exchange operators Nasdaq and BATS have been attacked over the last 24 hours, spokespersons for the companies said.

Only the banner carrying the logo at the top of the web page for the Nasdaq homepage was visible during repeated attempts to access Nasdaq's site, but trading in Nasdaq-listed stocks has not been affected. The site appears to have recovered at the time of publishing.

A Nasdaq OMX Group spokesman confirmed that it had been suffering a denial-of-service attack (DOS) since late on Monday but said they had not located the origin of the attack and were unable to say when it would be resolved. Another site, Nasdaq Trader, was also affected.

The website wasn't hacked, nobody got any information

"The website wasn't hacked, nobody got any information," said Nasdaq spokesman Joseph Christinat. "What they did was try to block access for our users."

The Nasdaq's websites are separate from their trading systems and Christinat said the breach had not affected trading in any way.

"We experienced intermittent service disruptions on our corporate website and we are working to resolve the issues," he said.

Similarly, a spokesperson for the BATS stock exchange said the company was affected by a denial of service incident. "Our trading systems were not affected and there were no exchange customer disruptions associated with the incident," the exchange said in a statement.

The Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange have been the victims of attacks in the past. Hackers who infiltrated the Nasdaq's computer systems in 2010 installed malicious software that allowed them to spy on the directors of publicly held companies, Reuters reported last year.

A federal investigation into the 2010 cyber attack on Nasdaq found lax security practices, according to people with knowledge of the probe.