[ISN] Message storm knocks NYSE offline

[InfoSec News]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/03/nyse_glitch/

By John Leyden
3rd June 2005

The New York Stock Exchange is re-examining its network after it was
forced to close four minutes early at 3:56pm on Wednesday (1 June)  
because of a communications glitch. Trading opened on time (09:30 EDT)  
the following morning but the outage irked traders and raised
questions about the reliability of a network described as "ultra
reliable" following improvements made in the wake the September 11
terrorist attacks.

The outage stemmed from a fault in a system designed to distribute
market data and operate computer trading systems. NYSE Chief Executive
John Thain said that both the main system and its backup were swamped
with error messages, Reuters reports. He added that the exchange would
carry out remedial work designed to prevent any repetition of the
problem.

A NYSE spokesman declined to expand on this explanation nor offer any
insights into why a network touted for its reliability crashed. ®