Hackers hit Nasdaq stock exchange

The Nasdaq stock exchange said hackers penetrated one of its computer systems, but that there was no evidence customer information or trading was compromised.Federal investigators were trying to determine Saturday who broke into the computer network of the company that runs the Nasdaq Stock Market several times last year.
A federal government official said that the hackers have not compromised the exchange's trading platform.Bosses have called in the FBI and US Department of Justice to carry out an urgent investigation, but insist its trading platforms – allowing shares to be bought and sold in companies including Google, Apple and Amazon – have not been hit.

FBI and Secret Service investigators were looking at a range of possible motives, including financial gain and a national security threat.A federal official says authorities are trying to identify the hackers who repeatedly broke into a Nasdaq communications system for more than a year. The company that runs the electronic stock market says hackers penetrated a service that handles confidential communications between board members of public companies. They say it appears no customer information was compromised.

Cybersecurity expert Clifford Neuman, a professor at the University of Southern California, said there are "serious implications for such an intrusion." Hackers, he said, might have gained enough knowledge of the system to make the next step -- into the trading system.