Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

London Stock Exchange Was 'Under Major Cyberattack' During Linux Switch

Posted by Soulskill on from the waffles-tasty-waffles dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Computerworld UK: "The London Stock Exchange's new open source trading system may have been hacked last year, according to a report. The alleged attack came as the LSE began the switch over to the Linux-based systems, according to the dates referred to in the Times newspaper. The continued threat of cyber attack has resulted in the LSE keeping a close dialogue with British security services, which this year branded cyber attacks as one of the biggest threats to the country. There were major problems on the exchange on 24 August, when stock prices of five large companies collapsed."

5 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Website FAIL! by a_hanso · · Score: 4, Informative

    Try this instead: http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3258814/london-stock-exchange-under-major-cyberattack-during-linux-switch/

  2. Re:Vague site, no details. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    As the concern and speculation deepens around the LSE outages, the exchange is due to switch on the new Linux systems on its main exchange in two weeks’ time, with dress rehearsals over the coming two weekends. The system replaces a Microsoft .Net architecture.

    As the Linux system isn't due to go "live" for another fortnight, I'd expect that it is the .NET based system that has been hacked.

  3. LSE not on the Linux platform yet by Organic_Info · · Score: 4, Informative

    The London Stock Exchange (LSE) have not yet moved on to the new Linux based Millenium trading platform - this is scheduled to happen on Feb 14th. It was supposed to have happened late last year but was delayed.

    A subsiduary of the LSE, the Turquoise Multilateral trading Facility (MTF) has already migrated to the MIT platform though.

    --
    "Things that you own end up owning you" - Tyler Durden (via Diogenes of Sinope).
    1. Re:LSE not on the Linux platform yet by chrb · · Score: 5, Informative
      Yes, the article has several errors:
      • "The London Stock Exchange's new open source trading system" ... except, the trading system isn't open source. Sure, it runs on the Linux kernel, which is open source, but so does Oracle...
      • "There were major problems on the exchange on 24 August, when stock prices of five large companies collapsed. Most notably, BT shares lost £968 million, and the LSE was forced to halt trading for the day." On 24 August the LSE was running the Windows .NET trading platform... the halt of trading had nothing to do with the new Linux platform.

      So, the big story here is that the LSE Windows based platform was possibly hacked and manipulated for financial gain. Why Computer World focuses on the Linux angle is a mystery.

  4. Re:Vague site, no details. by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Informative
    It was .NET that was in place. The switch-over will only occur on February 14th of this year.

    Also, there was no police investigation.

    But the Metropolitan Police, the e-crime unit and the City of London Police all told Computerworld UK that no such investigation was ongoing.

    The system currently in place (.dot.NET-based) failed to meet the specs, because, try as they could, Accenture could not get a windows-based platform to run fast enough - too much letency.

    The exchange finally realized it, and called for a linux-based system, which easily met the time guarantees - but obviously it's late, because it was only started when the exchange realized that the Microsoft-based system was never going to meet the performance goals.

    In other words, after Microsoft spent big bucks in all the trade magazines bragging about "winning the contract against linux" - and making it sound like they were replacing a previous linux-based system, you won't hear a peep from them admitting that their servers are sh*t.