WELLINGTON, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) website collapsed on Monday morning as result of cyber attack.

The NZX said in a statement early Monday morning that the stock markets were to open on Monday morning under new arrangements.

Shortly after 10:00 a.m. on Monday, NZX's main website collapsed before being restored one hour later. An NZX spokesman said further cyber attacks on Monday morning affected its website but trading had continued.

NZX Chief Executive, Mark Peterson, said in the statement that NZX continued to work closely with its network service provider Spark and national and international cyber security partners, including the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), as it has from the outset. It has also been working Akamai Technologies - one of the world's leading cyber defence experts - to implement additional measures.

"NZX has been advised by independent cyber specialists that the attacks last week are among the largest, most well-resourced and sophisticated they have ever seen in New Zealand," said Mark Peterson.

New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson said on Friday the government is directing the GCSB to assist the NZX.

"We recognise that it is important that the government works with private companies like them when they are faced with issues like the cyber attack they are currently experiencing," said Robertson.

Trading on the New Zealand stock market was disrupted on last Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as a result of a sustained cyber attack on NZX. The type of cyber attack was known as a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), which overwhelms the online service rendering it inoperable. Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)