NZ stock exchange suffers third day of cyber attacks

The New Zealand Exchange’s (NZX) website went offline Thursday for a third time this week after hackers breached its cyber security measures, according to media reports.

A notice on the NZX website said the exchange was experiencing ‘network connectivity issues’ and stated that the ‘NZX main board, NZX debt market and Fonterra shareholders’ market are currently halted’.

Trading on the exchange was interrupted on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, due to outages on its website linked to cyber attacks, according to New Zealand new reports.

A spokesman for the NZX was quoted as saying the exchange has to suspend trading if its website goes offline as retail traders cannot see the market’s news flow.

There are around 130 companies with shares listed on the NZX.

ASX operations continue as normal

Australia’s stock exchange the ASX declined to comment on the issue of cyber attacks, but stressed that all of its operations were running as normal.

“ASX markets are operating normally. As a matter of policy, ASX does not comment on specific cyber-related matters,” said an ASX spokesman.

“We have a range of security protections in place and work closely with government and relevant agencies to maintain the integrity of our services,” the spokesman added.