Tadawul and Abu Dhabi markets deny hacking

Stock markets of both Saudi Arabia and UAE capital Abu Dhabi issued two separate statements, Wednesday, denying the incursion of their websites by “internet pirates." The Saudi market statement said that some media circulated “allegations of penetration and disruption of the website of the financial market of Saudi Arabia… Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul)  but that this was false adding that all systems continue to function normally.” “Tadawul implements several advanced measures and systems to protect the security and continuity of the operations, which insures the safety and regularity of all its business,” the statement added. In the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange also denied the news of the hacking by “internet pirates”. The Emirati stock exchange said in a statement  that their website had “technical problems” which caused a short lag on Tuesday, however, the technical problem is resolved and did not affect the website in any way. News of both stock exchange markets of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia came amid an escalation in cyber warfare between Israeli and Arab hackers, following the incursion of a number of government websites in Israel by hackers believed to be Saudi, where the Israeli stock exchange website and the website of the Israeli airlines El Al were both attacked last Monday.  The websites were penetrated despite the “high security measures” taken to secure the web pages, according to the spokesperson for the Israeli stock exchange. This was preceded by the hacking of several credit card accounts of Israelis via the internet.