New Zealand called in its spy agency and activated security crisis plans to help defend the stock exchange from overseas attack, after hackers disrupted the market for a fourth straight day.
“We as a government are treating this very seriously,” New Zealand Minister of Finance Grant Robertson said yesterday, adding that agencies would coordinate to deal with the threat.
“There are limits to what I can say today about the action the government is taking behind the scenes due to significant security considerations,” he said.
The NZ$204 billion (US$136.4 billion) market has been the target of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that have overwhelmed its Web site and forced trading halts since Tuesday.
The national security plan is typically triggered when a crisis threatens New Zealand’s interests or international reputation.
Authorities have not commented on the suspected source of the attacks, which flood a network with Internet traffic and disrupt services, other than saying they originate from offshore.
Security intelligence firm Akamai earlier this week warned that extortionists claiming to be the Russian-linked hacking group Fancy Bear have recently been sending ransom letters to companies in finance, travel and e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific, the US and the UK, demanding payments to stop attacks.
New Zealand stock exchange operator NZX is among the companies targeted, the ZDNet Web site reported, citing an unidentified source in the DDoS mitigation field.
New Zealand Minister of Justice Andrew Little, who oversees the intelligence services, said it would take some time to establish the origin of the attacks.
They are more likely the result of criminal activity than being state sponsored, he said.
“We are aware that there have been DDoS attacks in other parts of the world in the finance sector,” he said in an interview, adding that the government had consulted with its Five Eyes intelligence partners.
The stock exchange failed to open at 10am yesterday, despite assurances from NZX that it would. Trading finally began three hours later at 1pm.
The market lost an hour of trading on Tuesday, three on Wednesday and almost six hours on Thursday from the repeat attacks. Despite the disruption, the market closed at an all-time high yesterday.
Little said it was surprising the NZX “appears to have such a vulnerable Web site and IT architecture.”
“I think now they’ve reflected on that and a plan is now in place for long term remediation,” he said. “My expectation is that they will step up their IT infrastructure and architecture and make sure they are positioned to resist this type of activity in the future.”
Steps have been taken to stabilize the website, and work will continue over the weekend, he added.
NZX chief executive Mark Peterson said the exchange had been the target of an “ongoing sophisticated and severe” attack and that it was working with Internet provider Spark, government agencies and cybersecurity experts in New Zealand and overseas to address the issue.
The disruptions have frustrated investors who were unable to trade amid a busy company earnings season.
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