Technical glitch not an after-effect of cyber attack: NSE (Roundup)

The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) on Monday said that a technical glitch which impacted intra-day trading on some of its segments was not the result of a cyber attack.

"It is clarified that no such attack was observed leading to the technical glitch," said the stock exchange major adding that it did not shift the trade to the BCP (business continuity plans) website, as the preliminary assessment of the glitch pointed to a software problem.

"BCP mechanism is normally invoked during any disaster, hardware failure, connectivity-related issues. Preliminary assessment indicated a software problem. Secondly, the system was expected to be rectified quickly and shifting BCP site would have taken longer time."

The stock market regulator Sebi had earlier issued guidelines for all exchanges and depositories to have a BCP and disaster recovery site in the event of a natural calamity.

The technical glitch occurred during the early-morning trade session on Monday and impacted trading on the Cash and Future and Option (F&O) segments. The glitch was noticed after the NSE stock rates were found not in tandem with BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) scrip prices.

The NSE's first two attempts failed to fully reopen the market. Finally, the third attempt resulted in resumption of full-fledged trading during the mid-afternoon session at around 12.30 p.m. in the cash and F&O segments.

However, stock brokers contacted by IANS said that though normal trade resumed after 12.30 p.m., some minor issues in the cash segment remained before being fixed at around 1.00 p.m..

"It restarted around 12.30 p.m. but some minor display issues on the cash segment remained till 1.00 p.m. The Futures segment operated seamlessly after the restart," a stock broker told IANS here.

After the incident, NSE referred the matter to its internal Standing Committee on Technology which comprises of public interest directors and technology experts to review "the problem" and approve measures to prevent recurrence of such glitches.

"The matter is being examined by the internal technical team and external vendors, to analyse and identify the cause which led to the issue and to suggest solutions to prevent recurrence," the NSE said.

Later in the day, Sebi directed the NSE to submit a "detailed report" on the technical glitch.

"Sebi has directed NSE to submit a detailed report on the matter. SEBI has also asked NSE to have a review of their business continuity plans and to submit a detailed plan as to what measures are going to be taken to avoid such recurrences," the regulator said.

"Sebi is also looking at the matter comprehensively and will interact with different stakeholders to explore as to what more needs to be done to avoid such recurrences."

--IANS

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