14 DAY TRIAL // One of Australia’s largest online broking companies, E*Trade, was shut down during the holidays after being targeted by a denial of service (DoS) attack.
Mostly customers from overseas were affected, but Australians also had trouble accessing the websites on December 19 and 20 as a result of the thousands of spam emails that bombarded the site, the Sidney Morning Herald reports.
“We experienced some malicious activity that impacted the performance of the E*Trade website prior to Christmas. We responded immediately to minimise any disruption to our clients and ensure our data remained secure,” an E*Trade spokesman said.
“This meant that clients may have had trouble accessing E*Trade from overseas but we were able to assist customers that made contact to execute trades during this period. At no stage was security of the E*Trade site breached.”
Fortunately, their customers were not endangered, but such incidents always leave a mark on a company’s reputation, especially after a large number of clients experience difficulties while accessing their services.