By John McCrank
NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) – Cyber-criminals targeted
Nasdaq OMX Group’s community forum website and gained
access to the email usernames and passwords of the members of
the site, which took two days to come back online on Thursday
evening.
The New York-based exchange operator said in an emailed
letter to users of the forum that no e-commerce or transactions
of any kind were taking place on the website. The forum was open
to the general public to join.
Nasdaq spokesman Joseph Christinat could not say how many
people’s information may have been compromised.
The cyber-attack happened on Tuesday, the same day a report
was released saying that around half of the world’s securities
exchanges had been targeted by cyber-attacks last year.
Cyber-crime appears to on the rise both in terms of
sophistication and complexity, widening the potential for
infiltration and large-scale damage, the report, by the
International Organization of Securities Commissions’ research
department and the World Federation of Exchanges Office, said.
A major attack could result in widespread public mistrust
and a retreat from the markets, it added.
On Thursday, Wall Street firms, along with exchanges and
regulators, held a simulated cyber-attack in order to help
participants prepare to combat the real thing. The drill, named
Quantum Dawn 2, was organized by the Securities Industry and
Financial Markets Association.
Nasdaq said in the letter to its forum users that it was
upgrading and restoring the forum website, where users can
discuss issues such as market moves.
The exchange said all passwords expired and asked that
members update any other accounts that may have the same
passwords.
Nasdaq has been targeted by cyber crime in the past. In
2010, hackers infiltrated the exchange’s computer systems and
installed software that allowed them to spy on the directors of
publicly held companies, Reuters reported.
And last year in February, Nasdaq and Kansas-based exchange
operator BATS Global Markets said they were hit by denial of
service attacks, which seek to disrupt websites and computer
systems by overwhelming the targeted organizations’ networks
with computer traffic.
In Oct. 2011, NYSE Euronext’s New York Stock
Exchange website was inaccessible for 30 minutes, according to
an Internet monitoring company, but the exchange said there was
no interruption of service.
