Hack-hit Bina Puri shares fall to 18-month low, short selling suspended

• Hackers reportedly accessed investors’ trading accounts and used them to buy shares without permission on Bursa Malaysia.

KUALA LUMPUR (April 25): Shares of Bina Puri Holdings Bhd (KL:BPURI) fell to an 18-month low, after The Edge reported that the stock and its Warrant B were affected by a major hacking incident. Hackers reportedly accessed investors’ trading accounts and used them to buy shares without permission on Bursa Malaysia.

The stock’s price fell by as much as 43% to 21.5 sen, triggering a suspension of intraday short selling. By 9:23am, it was trading at 28 sen, down 25.33%. It was one of the most actively-traded stocks on Bursa, with 21.85 million shares traded, though much lower than the previous day’s 103.68 million shares.

On Thursday, the stock saw unusual trading activity, with shares rising as high as 40 sen, before closing at 37.5 sen. Bina Puri-Warrant B also saw a spike in activity, doubling to 60 sen, before closing at 48.5 sen. Some 41.17 million units were traded. On Friday, the warrant was unchanged at 48.5 sen, with only 10,200 units traded.

The Securities Commission (SC) and Bursa, in a joint statement confirmed that several brokers reported failed logins and unauthorised trades in a small number of client accounts on Thursday (April 24). In response, brokers were told to ask clients to reset their passwords.

SC and Bursa are actively investigating the breach.

Extra security steps have been introduced, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) and stronger password rules. Regulators and brokers are staying alert and working together to find out what caused the incident.

The Edge quoted affected investors as saying that the hacking primarily facilitated fraudulent transactions involving the shares of Bina Puri and its Warrant B, shares of Pos Malaysia Bhd (KL:POS), as well as certain Hong Kong structured warrants.

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