Were Hackers Behind NASDAQ Chaos? Experts Say Technical Difficulties that Shut Market Resemble ‘Denial of Service Attack’

Officials say the Nasdaq stock exchange outage on Thursday was likely due to a technical difficulty, though some experts say the incident resembles recent cyber attacks against U.S. banks and other financial institutions.

‘My first thought is that it is a denial-of-service attack, but I’m not sure,’ Gartner banking security analyst Avivah Litan told USA Today. ‘It’s a very attractive target. It’s very visible, and that’s what these Iranian state attacks are all about, making a political statement by disrupting a visible website.’

A wave of denial-of-service attacks started last September, knocking several banks offline including Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Bank.

The attacks were attributed to Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, an Iranian hacking collective.

The second wave of denial-of-service attacks came in January, shutting down the websites of credit unions and mid-level banks. A third wave, in March, targeted credit card companies and financial brokerages.

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