Last week's cyber attacks against the Hong Kong stock exchange's disclosure website brought a wave of criticism from brokers about the bourse's internet security systems. But brokers would do well to look at their own system.
Brokers, legislators and government officials pressed the stock exchange for a report on what exactly happened last Wednesday when overseas hackers crashed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange regulatory disclosure website.
The attacks came in the form of so-called distributed denial of service attacks, which prevent access to a website by overwhelming its capacity to handle traffic.
The hackers attacked again on Thursday and Friday, but were fended off by the exchange. No attacks occurred yesterday, but who knows when the hackers will return.
The incidents should sound alarm bells for all banks and brokers on the need to review security systems on their investor internet trading platforms, which have become increasingly popular.
HKEx statistics show 185 brokers offered internet trading last year, up 76 per cent from 105 in 2006.