ANZ's E*Trade, Attacked By Hackers

After several denials, ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) has now confirmed that its online broking business E*Trade Australia became a victim of security breach during the holidays. The broking site received thousands of emails regarding a "denial of service" attack as customers from overseas cannot access their accounts.

''We experienced some malicious activity that impacted the performance of the E*Trade website prior to Christmas,'' said ANZ Spokesman Stephen Ries. He said that E*Trade was hit by a distributed denial of service attack which involves computers repeatedly making requests for information, preventing its ability to prive services to legitimate request.

''We responded immediately to minimise any disruption to our clients and ensure our data remained secure. 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,'' said Ries.

With the market still temporarily, it is hard to confirm if the incident has a financial impact on E*Trade. In the financial year to September, it took a hit.