London Stock Exchange Was 'Under Major Cyberattack' During Linux Switch 98
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."
computerworlduk under attack! (Score:1)
A threat to national security!
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Ok, seriously, who the fuck uses cold fusion anymore?
...aggravating factor... on a web server on Windows.
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Maybe it's not Windows but DOS?
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Maybe it's not Windows but DOS?
With a directory named "www.computerworlduk.com" ?
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seriously, who runs their web servers on Windows anymore? (read: ever)
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Anyone who uses .Net?
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Ok, seriously, who the fuck uses cold fusion anymore?
can't even rtfa.
Who used it ever?
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Error Messages: Element CURURL is undefined in REQUEST.
The whole site is down....
Were they running Wine? (Score:2)
Oops! Exception Encountered Error Running Custom Exception handler Error Type: Expression : [N/A] Error Messages: Element CURURL is undefined in REQUEST. Tag Context: ID: ?? LINE: 227 Template: D:\websites\www.computerworlduk.com\handlers\Main.cfc ID: CFINVOKE LINE: 629 Template: D:\JRun4\servers\www.computerworlduk.com\cfusion.ear\cfusion.war\Coldbox\system\web\Controller.cfc ID: CF_UDFMETHOD
Where would the D: drive be mounted in Linux?
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Oops! Exception Encountered Error Running Custom Exception handler Error Type: Expression : [N/A] Error Messages: Element CURURL is undefined in REQUEST. Tag Context: ID: ?? LINE: 227 Template: D:\websites\www.computerworlduk.com\handlers\Main.cfc ID: CFINVOKE LINE: 629 Template: D:\JRun4\servers\www.computerworlduk.com\cfusion.ear\cfusion.war\Coldbox\system\web\Controller.cfc ID: CF_UDFMETHOD
Where would the D: drive be mounted in Linux?
I don't know but its better having it there than on A: drive.
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I don't know but its better having it there than on A: drive.
Not if you want a mobile website.
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Windows most commonly uses D: for a CD-ROM drive, thus most likely it would be at /media/cdrom or /media/cdrom0 (possibly both). However, that error message looks like it more likely refers to a second hard drive or second hard drive partition; that would be /dev/hdaN (for some N) or /dev/sdaN (again, for some N) while unmounted, and could well be mounted anywhere (although /home, /usr, /var are places which often get partitions of their own).
Using Wine on Linux, there's a config file that lets you effectiv
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most likely it would be at /media/cdrom or /media/cdrom0 (possibly both).
That's /mnt/cd or /mnt/dvd, thank you. ;-)
Now take yer' dang newfangled LSB and get off my lawn.
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At that company maybe. The most common drive letter I've seen assigned is F:\<dirname>. That seems to be the typical server side assignment for shared fileservers.
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Where would the D: drive be mounted in Linux?
Where ever you wanted it to be
FUD (Score:1)
'may have been' another piece of MS-sponsored FUD?
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'may have been' another piece of MS-sponsored FUD?
Of course, since everybody here knows Linux systems do not get attacked
Re:FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
'may have been' another piece of MS-sponsored FUD?
Of course, since everybody here knows Linux systems do not get attacked
Yes, at least that's the official Microsoft version. There are no viruses for Linux because no one uses it.
Re:FUD (Score:5, Funny)
Ad banner: Your PC is currently under attack from thousands of viruses! Click here to prevent it from broadcasting it's IP address to hackers.
LSE Employee: Blimey! Ring the secret services! This is cyber war!
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Maybe.
Contrast:
with:
Website FAIL! (Score:2)
Whoops!
Re:Website FAIL! (Score:4, Informative)
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That will teach for you trying to RTFA!
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I am not a Linux nor a MS lover. I see the limitations of both OS-es. Neither are absolute secure, and I can hack neither (since I can't hack).
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Re:Linux Fags (Score:5, Insightful)
The question I would have is this: Would the MS system have held better?
The answer is "it depends".
Mostly, it depends on who's doing the hacking and who's managing the system. If it's a bunch of script kiddies or some bot which tries a number of well-known hacks then gives up and the system is competently managed, chances are neither would be particularly insecure.
If the system is poorly managed - be it Windows or Linux - chances are it's not going to take much effort to get in and some kid following a script without really understanding it could do it.
Where things get interesting (and impossible to discuss meaningfully without a better understanding of the systems themselves) is when you have competent, well-funded IT management (which I would hope any stock exchange would) and competent, well-funded attackers who are focused on a single goal (which is entirely possible when you're talking about a high-profile victim like this).
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The answer to that is in the article. It was the Microsoft .NET system which failed. The Linux system isn't even on line yet.
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Did you RTFA? The outages occurred on the Microsoft .NET system, not on the Linux system. The linux system isn't even on line yet. You MS fanbois really aught to learn to read.
Vague site, no details. (Score:2)
The website is extremely vague as to timelines of what system was in place when there were issues. Was .NET still in place, or was it indeed the Linux system when it got hacked. I'd like to see more details.
Re:Vague site, no details. (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.
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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.
I agree, but we can't be sure.
The London Stock Exchangeâ(TM)s new open source trading system may have been hacked last year, according to a report.
It would be nice to see the actual report this news item is based on.
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That said, if the LSE had switched to Linux and immediately been hacked after (presumably) years of running securely on .NET, I expect the Redmond PR machine would have leapt into action, and we'd be seeing a lot more articles, and they'd be very specific about which O/S was running.
Instead, we have one vague and potentially misleading article
Re:Vague site, no details. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I've heard is this. It's all hearsay, so is probably as factual as the FA.
The LSE is trying to (Stupidly) save face. They tried to go live and it was an absolute shit show, typical companies got about 20% compliance. There was no way they could roll forward, they had issues with firewalls, members had issues with routing and firewalls, trades weren't going through the system correctly for settlements, there was more bugs in member's code than ants in a nest. If they had said "We're going live anyway" there wouldn't have been a market on Monday morning. Aside from that, everyone goes into freeze for Christmas due to everyone taking time off, so it wouldn't have been sorted till at least after now, by which time, LSE would have lost so much business to the likes of NYSE (And potentially to Borsa Italiana, which is owned by the LSE) that it would be questionable whether they would still be in business by this stage.
They claimed previously that they were internally sabotaged, well, the running theory was that they just fucked up. To everyone involved that seems like a much more plausible option.
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the LSE put the highly-publicised December outage of the system - which already runs on its Turquoise anonymous trading venue - down to “human error”. It declined to give more details.
They started off with the "suspicious circumstances" line but police glanced at it, smirked and said "You guys screwed up."
Why TFA even talks about Linux is, as most posters have pointed out, a mystery. In Leo King's bio (the author of TFA) it says he studied Spanish and French in college. I'm gonna go with the "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity" approach and just assume that this Spanish/French speaking "journalist
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Re:Vague site, no details. (Score:4, Informative)
Also, there was no police investigation.
The system currently in place (.dot.NET-based) failed to meet the specs, because, try as they could, Accenture could not get a windows-based platform to run fast enough - too much letency.
The exchange finally realized it, and called for a linux-based system, which easily met the time guarantees - but obviously it's late, because it was only started when the exchange realized that the Microsoft-based system was never going to meet the performance goals.
In other words, after Microsoft spent big bucks in all the trade magazines bragging about "winning the contract against linux" - and making it sound like they were replacing a previous linux-based system, you won't hear a peep from them admitting that their servers are sh*t.
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The system currently in place (.dot.NET-based) failed to meet the specs, because, try as they could, Accenture could not get a windows-based platform to run fast enough - too much letency.
Windows is totally lacking in letency.
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No leetency either, I suspect.
Pissed off crackers? (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.
Re:Pissed off crackers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see - the London Stock Exchange swapped to Linux based software. It changed FROM Microsoft based software. (TradElec Windows-based C# and .NET programs, apparently).
And there was a major cyber attack during the changeover.
Let the conspiracy theories begin ...
Re:Pissed off crackers? (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)
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It isn't necessarily Microsoft fanboi hackers trying to discredit the migration to Linux (and getting their dates cocked up)
Yeah I have a hard time (lol pun was not intended) imagining Microsoft fanboi hackers "cocking up" their dates...
Internet Connected Exchanges?! (Score:4, Interesting)
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They will be connected somehow, because using the public internet as a transit backbone is the easiest way of getting a connection from a far away location (laying your own dedicated fibre isn't really practical), even if all your traffic goes over a VPN.
Also many trading companies will be connected into the exchange, who knows what state their networks will be in.
Re:Internet Connected Exchanges?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Internet Connected Exchanges?! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, nothing is as scary as the idea of a stock exchange's centrifuges being attacked.
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How does a system like this get hacked? (Score:2)
The number of people able to access any other port than the 1 or 2 necessary for exchange functions should number in the single digits for the production servers ... and even they shouldn't use computers with general internet access for that, at most computers with a "hardware" VPN solution. Hell given the amount of money involved I wouldn't even let non production servers and source code be accessed on any computer with general internet access ... fuck convenience, for this kind of money you can afford a w
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The article says:
Unlike US exchanges, the LSE platform is not based on the internet, and therefore is less vulnerable to general cyber attacks.
...and it doesn't detail the attacks. Maybe somebody tried a dictionary search on a web server, probably looking for something to spam from?
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Maybe it was running Mono.
Hit the bailout button! (Score:1)
No worries. The LSE collapses due to fatal infosec problems and the UK taxpayer picks up the bill. We could probably pick up some bargain-basement deals on whichever companies were affected by the trading system collapse too. In the long term, allowing poorly secured systems to fail is a kind of digital natural selection.
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LSE not on the Linux platform yet (Score:5, Informative)
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) have not yet moved on to the new Linux based Millenium trading platform - this is scheduled to happen on Feb 14th. It was supposed to have happened late last year but was delayed.
A subsiduary of the LSE, the Turquoise Multilateral trading Facility (MTF) has already migrated to the MIT platform though.
Re:LSE not on the Linux platform yet (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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They focused on Linux because a story about .net being attacked isn't news worthy. On the other hand, framing it such that linux may be in the spot light means people are chattering about linux and their story. This seriousl,y sounds like ms sponsored FUD.
article omits very important point. (Score:5, Insightful)
From one of the comments
"A half truth is a whole lie" ---Yiddish proverb.
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Re:article omits very important point. (Score:4, Insightful)
So how much is MS paying for that spin?
Their trading system could not meet latency requirements and now they need someway to save face.
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Then why did you run the story knowing that it's "incomplete" instead of waiting for more details to become available? It's not like this is a story that needs to be rushed out before deadline. The lead sentence says this story covers events that happened last year.
If you are going to run a story like this, you need some significantly better editorial controls that what it seems were employed. How about starting off with a specific time-line of events so we can have some idea which systems were involved,
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Every appropriate police force contacted by ComputerworldUK denied any knowledge of an investigation or of having been contacted by the Exchange. This sort of blanket denial usually only happens if the authorities believe there may be some terrorist aspect to the incident.
It could also mean that they weren't contacted at all, and that there actually is no investigation going on.
It wouldn't be the first time someone has publicly announced they are going to contact the police about something but actually don't; I remember a few years back reading a story about that Jack Thompson fellow (the one who didn't like video games) publishing a letter he was going to send to a police department somewhere, and forwarded it to many news agencies and people to show what he had said. But
Love the FUD! (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?
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Anyone have any background on the author and the publication's history on Linux and Windows stories?
Leo King is the authors name, his bio says he is the "chief reporter at Computerworld UK".
I assume (Score:4, Funny)
No need to crack anything, LSE is a mess by itself (Score:2)
Out of many different securities markets LSE has most bizarre bureaucratic procedures, rules, and provisioning processes. In the past years their market share shrunk a lot under pressure from much simpler to deal with MTFs (BATS, Chi-X etc.) Seems like they have too many people busy making work for themselves and their clients.
Besides they have not switched to Millennium (Linux based) yet. I'm not holding my breath though. Millennium platform is developed by Sri-Lancan Millennium IT. Out of all places where
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Uh oh. That means it's almost certainly Java, which never is a good idea for low-latency systems. Where RT, ULL and GRIO is concerned, it's pretty much the last choice I'd recommend.
perp (Score:2)
microsoft?
interesting how... (Score:1)
Did they use an external firm, to do this? If so, how come someone knew that at that time they were changing systems, and would know that the change was one of the OS, unless it came from the inside, I would look at who had access to that info, and then maybe go from there...
If someone leaked from the inside, then there would be a trace, usually...as this costs many millions of dollars.
article doesn't made any sense (Score:1)
"The London Stock Exchange's new open source trading system may have been hacked last year"
And where's the evidence, the article is technically erroneous and totally short on any verifiable facts.
"Unlike US exchanges, the LSE platform is not based on the internet ..
"The new Linux system, based in a C++ environment"
Please define a 'C++ environment', and provide examples?
link [computerworlduk.com]
WHo profits if the attack suceeds (Score:1)