THE HILL: Day of ‘technical’ glitches puts lawmakers on edge.

Lawmakers are having a hard time swallowing the idea that a major stock exchange, a global airline and a prominent media outlet coincidentally suffered major outages on the same day.

The New York Stock Exchange halted trading for roughly four hours Wednesday, and United Airlines had to ground all of its flights in the morning, both citing technical problems as the culprit. And shortly after the stock exchange went down, the homepage for The Wall Street Journal crashed.

The Obama administration said there were no signs the outages were caused by nefarious outside actors, but lawmakers were having a tough time buying it could all be a coincidence and are vowing to look into the matter.

“I’d like to know some more information,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). “To have three outages in three important places on the same day raises a lot of questions. I haven’t gotten answers yet.”

Dissections of what exactly happened in each case were in the preliminary stages Wednesday, but members of Congress were quick to question if foul play was involved, despite assurances the problems were technical, not malicious.

“I think it has the appearances of a cyberattack,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has authority over many Internet issues.

Asked if he was not confident in the exchange’s own assurances that the suspension wasn’t the result of a cyberattack, Nelson responded, “to be determined.”

Coincidences happen. But so does hostile action.