| Carbon trading registries in half
of Europe have been hit by hackers, who broke security systems
to steal emissions rights certificates from companies to sell
them on, the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) newspaper
reported, citing officials.
"There has been a highly professional attack," a spokesman
for the German carbon registry DEHSt
was quoted as saying.
Carbon trading under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme has
not been impaired by the case which is now being investigated
by the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, the newspaper
said.
An email phishing scam forced several European emissions
registries to close temporarily after a suspect email was
sent to market participants requesting their account details,
traders said.
Traders said the scam didn't affect the market, but they
said they had received warning emails after the European Commission
advised registries to notify account holders.
Registry entries denoting ownership changes of carbon certificates
have not been possible since last Friday (29th Jan) and this
would remain the case for the rest of the week at DEHSt, the
newspaper said.
It said it was planned that the current transactions would
be officially added later.
Related national registries - which, under EU law, administer
the allocation and handling of emissions rights in their countries
- in Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Romania
and Bulgaria have also been contacted.
The paper said the size of damages could not be estimated
at this stage.
The trading scheme has already proved to be vulnerable to
tax fraud.
The newspaper also said that Norway, Austria and the Netherlands
responded within hours and had reopened their registries.
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