Ransomware Attack : NEPSE remains Closed

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) suspended September 21, 2026, regular trading session due to a technical problem at a data center hosting the servers of 72 brokerage firms. In this blog, we are going to list some of the cases of stock market shutdown due to technical difficulties and ramsomware attack.

The Indian stock market, National Stock Exchange (NYSE) halted its trading operation for approximately three and a half hours on February 24, 2021, due to a significant technical failure. The trading resumed later in the afternoon with extended trading hours. Big brokerage houses such as IIFL Securities, 5 Paisa and Axis Securities had come under a ransomware attack that targeted Comtel, a data center, on December 10, 2024. According to a Money control report, around 16 brokers had been hit by the ransomware attack.

The New York Stock Exchange (NSE) abruptly shut down at 11:32am and did not resume trading until about 3:10pm on July 8, 2015. The officials said that the outage was caused by technical “configuration problem” that was “fixed” but did not describe what exactly went wrong and forced the midday shutdown.

A ransomware attack on software firm ION Trading UK, on 1 January 2023 affected 42 clients and sent ripples through markets which had forced numerous European and US banks and brokers to process derivatives trades manually. Russian ransomware gang LockBit was responsible for the attack. ION had told its customers the firm is expected to be back up and running within two to three days.

Ransomware is a form of malware designed for digital extortion. Once it infects a system—commonly through phishing emails, malicious downloads, or exploit kits—it encrypts files or locks the device, making data inaccessible until a ransom is paid. If the ransom is not paid on time, the perpetrator could most likely use the data maliciously. They could publish people’s information on the dark-web to do as they please, which poses risks to individuals as well as institutions. In the coming days NEPSE should focus on strengthening its cyber security so that these problems don’t arise in the future.