Businessman Convicted of Crashing Hong Kong Stock Exchange Website from Mother's Home

First published: 25^th October 2012

Tse Man-lai, Director of Pacswitch Globe Telecom, a company that provides internet and telephony services, was convicted of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attack against the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's regulatory disclosure website, HKExnews on 12th and 13th August 2011. He was found guilty on two counts of accessing a computer with criminal or dishonest intent and sentencing was adjourned to 9th November. Tse has a computer diploma from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Judge Peter Longley said Tse knew the website, HKExnews, had been attacked on 10th and 11th August 2011, resulting in trading suspensions for seven companies including HSBC and Cathay Pacific, just before his attacks. Tse claimed that he did not intend to attack the site, but he thought he was offline while he fiddled with the attack software. He also claimed that the attacks resulted in the public being educated. The judge reject the claims as unreasonable. The judge accepted the prosecution's claims that, with his IT expertise, he must be aware of being online and that the attacks purpose were to promote his company's services. Tse admitted that he was the only user of the computer at the home he shares with his mother, which was used to launch the attacks.

The source of the earlier attacks on the HKEX website is still unknown.