NSE flags concern over potential cyber attacks on financial market

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) today raised concern over potential for large-scale cyber attacks on financial market infrastructure and called for setting up the standards to bring about the change through talent empowerment and investment in innovation.

Increasing global interconnectedness and complexity of systems make the risk of a large scale cyber attack even more pertinent and threaten the stability of financial markets, its managing director and chief executive officer, Vikram Limaye, said Tuesday at the 'NSE Future Tech 2018'.

"The potential for large-scale cyber attacks on financial markets infrastructure at a very low cost is a major risk across the globe," he added.

World Economic Forum has listed cyber attacks as one of the four major risks today and in the years to come.

The Ponemon Institute's 2017 Cost of Data Breach Study pegs organisations in India, Brazil and South Africa as the most likely to experience a material data breach in the next 24 months.

Limaye pointed out that as leaders in the capital market space, it is our responsibility to set the standards and the FutureTech series is one of the many initiatives taken up by the exchange to bring about the change through talent empowerment and investment in innovation.

"Our focus is on building resiliency and security to ensure that the capital markets and its constituents are able to provide the services that they are intended for, he said.

The capital market ecosystem is considered as one of the important segment in the national critical infrastructure (NCI) of any economy, he said, adding rendering it vulnerable and susceptible to cyber breaches or security threats would damage and impair the economic and social fabric of the nations.