How a dated cyberattack brought a stock exchange to its knees

NZX was targeted as part of a DDoS campaign that began last year and was striking in its global ambition. More than 100 companies and organisations around the world have so far felt its force. — Bloomberg

The website of the New Zealand Stock Exchange slowed to a crawl on a Tuesday afternoon in August. It was so badly throttled that the exchange couldn’t post market announcements, as required by financial regulators. So with an hour left for trading, management shut the entire operation down.

It didn’t take long to figure out what happened. The website had been overwhelmed by a tsunami of offshore digital traffic. An email from the perpetrators made clear that it was a malicious attack.