Sebi seeks framework to fight cyber attacks on markets

Mumbai: Capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Wednesday said it is worried over state sponsored cyber attacks and has suggested creating a framework for protecting the securities market.

“We are worried over state sponsored cyber attacks. There are worries that the vulnerability in markets are increasing. We need to create a framework for future plan of action on securities market resilience,” Sebi chairman U. K. Sinha said here at Cyber Security and Resilience conference, organised by Sebi and the BSE.

He said cyber attacks are occurring these days in a more sophisticated manner and there is a need to create awareness in the market.

“Cyber attacks are very common in financial sector and happening in a greater sophisticated manner. The adoption of new technologies have both advantages as well as challenges, but we need to create more awareness,” Sinha said.

The global body for securities regulators, International Organisation of Securities Commissions (Iosco) is also working with regulators on how to improve liquidity risk management, he added.

According to government data, more than 700 government websites that are hosted under ‘gov.in’ and ‘nic.in’ domains, have been hacked by cyber criminals since 2012. Cyber threats will continue to multiply.

The advent of the digital world, and the inherent interconnectivity of people, devices and organisations, opens up a whole new playing field of vulnerabilities, according to a Ernst and Young Llp report that was cited during the conference.

Maharashtra governor Vidyasagar Rao said: “The growing adoption of internet and smart phones and the rising popularity of online banking, online trading and e-commerce has made India one of the most favourite counties among cyber criminals. The number of cyber crimes in India may touch 3 lakh in 2015, almost double from the last year.”

He added: “We need ecosystem to protect the economic sovereignty of the nation. We also need to evolve a full proof cyber security mechanism to protect the economic integrity of our corporates, MNCs, and business organisations.”

He said there is a need to invest in people, processes and technology to ensure the necessary resilience to quickly detect, act and recover from cyber attacks and that every organisation must have a digital forensic team to prevent and deal with such attacks.