Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, said the computer glitches which impacted the New York Stock Exchange, United Airlines and the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday showed a need for Congress to pass a cybersecurity reform bill.
Nelson, the top Democrat on the Senate's data security subcommittee, also commented on Twitter that three glitches in one day gave the appearance of a cyberattack.
A spokeswoman for the New York Stock Exchange said the outage was internal and not an attack.
Three major computer malfunctions on same day give appearance of an attack, serve as reminder Congress must pass a cybersecurity bill
— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) July 8, 2015Nelson also told The Daily Beast he did not have any information linking the three computer issues.
I asked Sen. Nelson if he had any information linking the three events together, and he said he did not.
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) July 8, 2015The NYSE suspended trading shortly before noon. NYSE-listed stocks were still trading on other exchanges. The Nasdaq and other exchanges were not affected by the outage.
The Wall Street Journal's website went down around the same time. It was back up around 1 p.m.
We're back up—and ready for the Fed! Thanks for your patience.
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) July 8, 2015Earlier Wednesday, United Airlines temporarily grounded all U.S. flights because of a problem with its computer system. It was the second time in two months the carrier had been hit by technical troubles.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.