NYSE halt: Sebi, exchanges review risk management systems

With a major 'glitch' causing nearly four-hour trading halt at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) last night, regulator Sebi and stock exchanges here have initiated an urgent review of the overall risks management and disaster recovery systems of the Indian markets.

Top officials said the systems here are already being upgraded constantly to tackle any unforeseen circumstances but it was decided to take a stock of the situation last night itself when first reports began coming in about the NYSE case.

They expressed satisfaction about the systems after this 'urgent review' and said nothing was found amiss.

The initial investigations in the US have shown that the 'technical glitch' at NYSE was caused by some 'internal software upgrade' and the regulators and other agencies have so far ruled out any external reasons such as cyber attacks.

While there have been several cases of such 'technical glitches' hitting the stock exchanges abroad, the Indian markets have been relatively better off on this front.

Sebi has been asking the stock exchanges and other market entities to take necessary steps from time to time to assess the robustness of their systems to avoid any software-related or other technical disruptions.

The regulator has also been conducting regular audit of the software systems in use to avoid any technical glitches.

Incidentally, Sebi earlier this week issued a new set of guidelines for the stock exchanges and other market infrastructure institutions to safeguard their systems, networks and databases from cyber attacks.

Asking all exchanges, clearing corporations and depositories to implement necessary changes within six months, Sebi said these Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs) need to have a robust cyber security framework to provide essential facilities and perform systemically critical functions of trading, clearing and settlement in securities market.

Identifying cyber crime as a major threat, Sebi Chairman U K Sinha recently said such attacks are occurring these days in a more sophisticated manner while he also raised concerns about cyber attacks from abroad.

There were apprehensions that the problems at NYSE could be due to cyber attacks, especially because technical problems were observed yesterday at some other organisations as well.

While computer problems forced United Airlines to ground its flights for two hours, leading financial daily Wall Street Journal's website also went down temporarily.

This is the biggest outage to hit the US markets in nearly two years after trading in all Nasdaq-listed stocks remain frozen for nearly three hours in August 2013.

Amid speculation about a cyber attack, the White House also swung into action and issued a statement saying it was monitoring the situation and there was "no indication that there are malicious actors involved".

The US markets regulator SEC is further investigating the matter, while its Chairperson Mary Jo White also said last night they are closely monitoring the situation.

The NYSE issued more than 60 alerts till the time trading resumed after nearly four hours at around 3 p.m.