Ratopati reports that a ransomware attack on a Nepal Stock Exchange data center resulted in the closing of stock market trading on Monday.
There are 90 broker companies in Nepal. These brokers use two data centers to store data related to transactions with their clients. Of these, Data Hub handles the data center work for 72 brokers, while Himalayan Cloud manages the data for the remaining 18 brokers. The trading had to be postponed as most of the brokers’ data was subjected to a cyber attack, said Murahari Parajuli, spokesperson for the Nepal Stock Exchange.
Read more at Ratopati.
Online Khabar provides additional details that confirm that encryption was involved in the incident. Quoting an online official, after Data Hub restored the affected systems from its disaster recovery centre in Butwal, they report:
“We formatted all the encrypted data and restored it from the backup in Butwal. Fortunately, there was no data loss. That is the biggest relief for now,” the official said.
The official also acknowledged that some fintech companies and other organisations were affected by the incident, although he declined to identify them or provide details about the extent of the damage.
“All the details will emerge after the investigation,” he said.
Read more at Online Khabar.
As of publication, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
