News that successful hacking attempts were spreading to some of the Web’s most popular sites was sending Internet stocks down in midday trading Wednesday.
At noon Eastern, internet.com’s Internet Stock Index was off 5.18, or .56 percent, to 919.15, the Nasdaq Composite had fallen 34.82 to 4,392.68 and the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen 149.54 to 10,808.06.
Most all of the affected sites were trading lower, including eBay Inc. (EBAY), off 6-5/16 to 163-7/16, Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), down 11-3/8 to 361-3/4 and Amazon.com (AMZN), had fallen 2-3/4 to 80-3/8.
The FBI said in a news conference Wednesday morning it is investigating the rash of “denial of service” attacks. Such attacks involve using automated tools to flood Web sites with traffic until they are overwhelmed with requests and will no longer function.
The attacks were good news for Internet security specialists whose stocks were trading higher. Those benefiting included Keynote Systems (KEYN), up 4-7/16 to 118, ISS Group (ISSX), up 2-7/8 to 76-3/4 and Axent Technology (AXNT), up 2-15/16 to 26-3/16.
More good news came from networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), which was trading up 4-9/16 to 130-3/8. The company Tuesday reported a fiscal second-quarter operating profit of 25 cents a share, beating analysts’ estimates by a penny. The company also announced a 2-for-1 stock split.
BroadVision Inc. (BVSN) had jumped 10-3/4 to 163. The e-commerce software maker Tuesday announced a 3-for-1 stock split that will take effect March 13.
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