Did Anonymous 'hactivists' shut down NY Stock Exchange website? Site crashes briefly



The New York Stock Exchange’s website was briefly forced offline after an attack by a group of ‘Hactivists’ aligned to the Occupy Wall Street protests.



The group, calling itself Anonymous, had threatened a huge attack on the site at 3.30pm on Monday, and is alleged to have succeeded - albeit very briefly.



The website was slow before becoming unavailable from about 3.35pm until 3.37pm, agencies have said.

Offiline: Traders could not access the website for the New York Stock Exchange briefly on Monday

Supposedly widespread disruptions to the site also occurred between 5.30pm and 5.55pm.

Tracking site AltertSite told the Chicago Tribune there was a ‘definite increase in response times from 3:45 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET’.

The NYSE, however, played down any problems caused by the hackers.



‘We detected no service outage on our corporate website at that time,’ spokesman Rich Adamonis insisted.

Trading was not affected, he added.

The attack came as protesters camped in New York's financial district showed no signs of budging.

The Occupy wall Street movement has gained huge momentum in the past few weeks, with affiliated protests springing up around the country.

Chanting: Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests march through the Financial District in New York

Earlier this month, Anonymous sent out a video message on Youtube calling for a ‘distributed denial of service’ attack (DDoS).

These redirect huge amounts of traffic to a site at once so that it crashes temporarily under the strain.

The group has used the same tactic before to take down Visa and Mastercard’s websites in December last year.

The video said: ‘A new civil rights movement has begun. You now have an opportunity to make a difference. Join the protests. Organise your own. Watch online. Be a part of the movement.’

The eventual attack would have been a disappointment for protesters.