In fact, the risk of cyber security attacks on financial systems has increased in recent years. According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the financial sector is the most targeted by hackers, after the healthcare sector. The total number of intrusions into financial systems has doubled from 14% in 2016 to 30% in 2023.
Even large exchanges cannot avoid being hacked
Every hour and every minute, businesses have to process and manage large amounts of data, making them a prime target for cybercriminals. According to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), a serious cyber incident could destabilize the financial system, affecting critical infrastructure and the economy.
Many large stock exchanges also became victims of hackers. Photo: Bloomberg.
The computer system that operates the Nasdaq stock market was hacked several times in 2011, showing that even large exchanges cannot avoid serious problems. Specifically, it was discovered that Nasdaq was attacked by hackers after the computer system at this exchange did not update the prices of stock codes.
Nasdaq management staff said they found suspicious files hidden in a Directors Desk cloud service server in the US, thereby attacking one of the floor’s Internet-based applications.
Hackers often embed such files to spy on valuable data, in this case possibly to gain insider information. However, at that time, Nasdaq affirmed that there was no evidence that Directors Desk customer information was broken into or appropriated by hackers.
Nasdaq is one of the largest stock exchanges in the United States and many leading companies list shares on this exchange. If hackers are able to breach internal trading systems, anxiety will grip companies listed on exchanges as well as traders and investors who buy and sell millions of shares every day. New York Times identify.
By 2013, Nasdaq continued to have problems, paralyzed for 3 hours because of a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service – DdoS) attack. Not long ago, six major US banks also simultaneously suffered a DDoS attack, making it impossible for customers to access their websites or perform online transactions.
A very common form of cyber attack, DDoS causes attacked websites to close because they cannot handle large amounts of traffic.
Investors should not panic when the exchange is hacked
Even New Zealand – a place where cyber attacks do not often occur – is not outside the list of victims of this trick.
In 2020, operations of the New Zealand stock exchange (NZX) were paralyzed for 4 consecutive days due to DDoS attacks causing network connection errors. The hack was carried out right in the context of companies listed on this market announcing their annual business results.
Four days later, NZX said its operations had returned to normal after strengthening additional measures to maintain system connectivity and deal with DDoS attacks. However, just 2 hours after resuming operations, NZX said they continued to experience connection problems. The exchange has only partially restored operations.
The most recent incident involved the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China ICBC – the world’s largest bank by asset value – being attacked by a cyber attack, causing a series of interrupted transactions.
The world’s largest bank was also hacked and had to make transactions via USB. Photo: Bloomberg.
The hack was so large that the bank had to perform transactions manually – using USB to transmit data about US Treasury bond purchase and sale orders. Many transactions have been “matched” but ICBC’s customers have not yet received payment. Even bank email stopped working, forcing employees to switch to Google mail.
Experts believe that the hack was carried out by Lockbit, a notorious hacker group that has infiltrated the networks of Boeing, ION Trading UK and Royal Mail. Lockbit has attacked more than 1,700 organizations in almost every field, from financial services, food, schools, transportation and even government agencies.
Ultimately, ICBC had to give its US branch about 9 billion USD to process unfinished transactions and hire a cybersecurity company to help restore the system. “This is really a shock to major banks around the world,” said Marcus Murray, founder of Swedish cybersecurity company Truesec.
But when commenting on cyber attacks on the stock exchange, Philip Lieberman, president of security company Lieberman Software, said the stock market has many strict security measures to prevent the negative effects of cyberattacks. hacking, intrusion or fraud.
“A hack could cause a temporary outage. However, any acts of fraud or violations on the trading floor will not be handled. When there is an unusual incident, the trading floor will immediately close. This has happened many times and you should not panic. The trading floor will reopen when everything is okay,” the expert affirmed.
Theo Thuy Lien – Znews