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 More than half of the world's exchanges were hit by cyber attacks in
2012, according to a paper released last year by the World
Federation of Exchanges Office and the research department of the
International Organization of Securities Commissions.
"We are worried a lot and we are far more worried now than we were
just a couple of years ago," Magnus Bocker, chief executive of
Singapore Exchange Ltd, said during a panel discussion at the
Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida on
Wednesday.
Bocker said spending on cybersecurity is on the rise, but said
exchanges need to do a better job of sharing information with each
other on effective ways of combating cyber criminals.
At Nasdaq OMX Group, the number of cyber attacks aimed at disrupting
the exchange's online network actually fell by 30 percent to 35
percent in the latter half of 2013, possibly due to a thawing of
relations between the United States and Iran, Chief Executive
Officer Robert Greifeld said. That said, Nasdaq is not letting its
guard down, he added.
"You obviously have to be very vigilant and you will never be secure
and you have to walk around paranoid," he said.
Nasdaq has been adding former military and government security
experts to its cybersecurity team, as well as working closely with
the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify potential
threats, Greifeld said.
Cyber criminals targeted Nasdaq's community forum website last July
and gained access to the email user names and passwords of the
members of the site, which took two days to come back online. In
2010, hackers infiltrated the exchange's computer systems and
installed software that allowed them to spy on the directors of
publicly held companies, Reuters reported.
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The interconnectedness of the mostly electronic markets makes the
system more vulnerable, and exchanges need to work with their
customers to make sure they are protected from attacks as well, said
Jeffrey Sprecher, head of New York Stock Exchange owner
IntercontinentalExchange Group.
"The scary thing for us is not what we control, because we all are
focused on it," he said. "The reality is we all have common
customers that are connected to us, that are connected to each
other."
He said the chief executive of a high-frequency trading firm called
him just last week to ask for help in guarding against cyber
criminals, adding that the massive data breach at retailer Target
Corp last year came through a vendor, and not directly into Target's
system. That breach led to the theft of about 40 million credit card
and debit card records and 70 million other records of customer
details.
Andreas Preuss, CEO of Germany-based Eurex, predicted that
cybersecurity would have a much more prominent role at next year's
Futures Industry Association conference.
"Hopefully not on the back of something that has just happened," he
said.
(Reporting by John McCrank; editing by
Jonathan Oatis)
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