NZX Goes Offline for Third Day in a Row Following DDoS Attacks

The New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) has yet again crashed today for the third time in as many days, as the Exchange Exchange An exchange is known as a marketplace that supports the trading of derivatives, commodities, securities, and other financial instruments.Generally, an exchange is accessible through a digital platform or sometimes at a tangible address where investors organize to perform trading. Among the chief responsibilities of an exchange would be to uphold honest and fair-trading practices. These are instrumental in making sure that the distribution of supported security rates on that exchange are effectiv An exchange is known as a marketplace that supports the trading of derivatives, commodities, securities, and other financial instruments.Generally, an exchange is accessible through a digital platform or sometimes at a tangible address where investors organize to perform trading. Among the chief responsibilities of an exchange would be to uphold honest and fair-trading practices. These are instrumental in making sure that the distribution of supported security rates on that exchange are effectiv Read this Term deals with reported cyber attacks.

The NZX said in a statement earlier today that it had to halt trading at 11.10 am New Zealand time on its cash markets as it experienced a connectivity issue with its system. The trading halt came when the S&P NZX-50 was yet again close to hitting an all-time high.

In a statement earlier today, the exchange operator said: "NZX is continuing to work with its network provider [Spark] to investigate the source of the issue, following volumetric DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks from offshore on 25 and 26 August."

Another Blow for NZX

As Finance Magnates reported, yesterday the exchange went offline for a number of hours, after placing a trading halt on its cash markets at approximately 11.24am New Zealand time, before resuming operations at 3.00 pm.

This included the NZX Main Board, NZX Debt Market and Fonterra Shareholders Market. This was the second attack for the New Zealand exchange, with a similar incident occurring on Tuesday.

In a joint statement on Tuesday with Spark, NZX’s network provider, the exchange communicated: “As such, NZX decided to halt trading in its cash markets at approximately [3.57pm]. A DDoS Attack DDoS Attack A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is defined as an attempt by malicious actor to overwhelm a targeted server, website, or network with a flood of internet traffic. Most often this takes the shape of a machine or network becoming unavailable to users for a period of time through the systematic disruption services of a host connected to the Internet.These attacks are most effective when multiple compromised computer systems and other internet-connected devices are exploited as sources A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is defined as an attempt by malicious actor to overwhelm a targeted server, website, or network with a flood of internet traffic. Most often this takes the shape of a machine or network becoming unavailable to users for a period of time through the systematic disruption services of a host connected to the Internet.These attacks are most effective when multiple compromised computer systems and other internet-connected devices are exploited as sources Read this Term aims to disrupt service by saturating a network with significant volumes of internet traffic.”

The outage on Tuesday came at the same time that the New Zealand market was close to its all-time high. The S&P/NZX 50 Index closed at 11,993.18 points. This was up 72.10 points or 0.6 per cent.

According to experts, the sustained cyber-attacks on the exchange indicate a high level of sophistication and determination. It is currently not clear who is attacking the exchange. The multiple shutdowns of the exchange follow on from a series of attacks in the region.