Anonymous hacker group pledges cyberattack on New York Stock Exchange

Michael Riley and Nina Mehta The Washington Post 10/05/2011 16:05

Anonymous, a group of self-styled hacker-activists behind attacks on corporate and government websites, vowed to support the Occupy Wall Street protests by erasing the New York Stock Exchange “from the Internet” on Oct. 10.

The group posted a video message on YouTube declaring war on the world’s largest stock exchange in retaliation for the mass arrests of Wall Street protesters, and posted a link to the video on one of several Anonymous Twitter feeds.

The two-minute message didn’t elaborate on the threat or whether it referred only to an attack on the NYSE website, which would have no effect on trading.

Anonymous has launched several so-called directed denial of service attacks on websites over several months, including actions in December against the sites of MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. Members of the group use specialized software to launch the attacks, which can slow or crash the site for a short period of time, according to court documents.

Richard Adamonis, a spokesman for NYSE Euronext, which operates the exchange, said the company doesn’t comment on rumors or security matters.

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