NZX website down again having started the day well

The NZX website appears to be functioning normally after days of cyber attracks.Photo / File

The NZX website is down again having started the morning functioning normally.

The website went down around midday and has been battling to get back online since.

Share trading started at 10am.

For sharebrokers it was business as usual yesterday despite continued attacks on the website.

Brokers have been gaining access to prices available from the IRESS information provider and through the "backbone" of the trading system - Nasdaq X-Stream.

The exchange said yesterday that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks last week had affected NZX's ability to publish market announcements to the public.

At those times, NZX halted the market to maintain market integrity.

It said the NZX continues to work closely with its network service provider, Spark, and national and international cyber-security partners, including the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), as it has from the outset.

It has also been working with Akamai Technologies – one of the world's leading cyber-defence experts – to implement additional measures.

NZX has also agreed with the Financial Markets Authority contingency arrangements for the release of, and access to, market announcements that are intended to allow trading to continue if the nzx.com website goes offline.

GCSB Minister Andrew Little told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking the stock market has been getting advice from the GCSB since Tuesday last week, when the attacks started.

He said the NZX received an email message before the stock market was hit.

Work was under way to track the message's origin.

Little said the GCSB was managing the continued attacks, rating it as 7/10 in terms of progress.