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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. Pissed off crackers? by Centurix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Part of thinks that these guys may have had easy access to the stock exchange system through whatever backdoor they had. Closing it then pissed them off so they went on the attack.

    --
    Task Mangler
    1. Re:Pissed off crackers? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      not necessarily - they might have thought it was the ideal "opportunity moment" - attack the system when they're undergoing a transition and not only might they get away undetected, but they might also cause more damage than before (ie with servers turned off ready to be replaced with the new software, the capacity would be reduced).

      It isn't necessarily Microsoft fanboi hackers trying to discredit the migration to Linux (and getting their dates cocked up)

  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. Love the FUD! by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is just awesome. Just when you would think it would be impossible to spin an attack on a major Microsoft based trading system, they omit Microsoft, insert Linux and speak of the dreaded cyberattack.

    I have to wonder who and why. Anyone have any background on the author and the publication's history on Linux and Windows stories?

  4. 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.