GCSB ‘catches up’ on cyberattacks against NZX and other companies, says Andrew Little

The Government Communications Security Office is becoming aware of cyberattacks that have caused the NZX website to go down in the past five business days.

GCSB Minister Andrew Little told Mike Hosking of Newstalk ZB that the stock market has been receiving advice from GCSB since Tuesday last week, when the attacks began.

He said that NZX received an email message before the stock market hit.

Work was being done to trace the origin of the message.

“The NZX received a message, an email before it was bombed, so work is being done to trace where it could have come from,” Little said, adding that banks and a media outlet were also affected by the DDoS attacks. in their systems.

Little said the GCSB was in a position to handle the ongoing attacks, rating it 7/10 in terms of progress.

“The NZX contacted the National Cyber ​​Security Center, which is part of GCSB. They did not want help originally, but as it progressed last week, they received help.”

On Friday, the GCSB raised a serious group to deal with the ongoing attacks on the stock market.

Little said it appeared to be criminally motivated and not a state-led attack.

“The nature of this tends to be criminal activity rather than state endorsed. It cannot be ruled out, but it is more likely criminal activity.”

The modus operandi with attacks on other organizations in recent days, such as banks and media companies, was the same, Little said.

You understand that a ransom has been requested in some cases, but not others.

It also appeared to be a “pretty sophisticated” operation, he said.

Little said the NZX was found to be vulnerable, and said there appeared to be a security issue with private business information stored in the cloud.

On how long they would deal with the cyber bombing, he said “in the end, you just have to endure it and let it slip away.”

It was a matter of time before those responsible for the attack would surrender and go elsewhere if their demands were not met, Little said.

The NZX website was blocked again yesterday morning for the fifth day after a series of cyberattacks hit the exchange last week.

Despite this continuous attack on its website, the NZX continued to operate around the clock without interruption.

The NZX, with the agreement of the Financial Markets Authority, has implemented alternative methods of disclosure.

The prices were made available to the information provider IRESS and through the backbone of the Nasdaq X-Stream trading system.

Last Friday, the Stock Exchange suffered its fourth day of offshore cyberattacks, overwhelming the NZX website.

Stock trading was temporarily suspended because investors were unable to see the company’s updated announcements, leading to an uninformed market.

The technology website ZDNet said that cyberattacks had occurred around the world for the past two weeks, but the NZX was one of the worst hit.

Other financial services companies affected by the attacks include global payments company PayPal, and money transfer companies Braintree and Worldpay.

Media organizations RNZ and Stuff reported yesterday that they were targeted.