Ashish Kumar Chauhan, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) chief, has asked a stockbrokers’ body, the Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI), to set up a special task force to battle against AI-driven cyberattacks.
Chauhan said at the ANMI’s 16th annual capital market convention in Mumbai on October 24 that NSE is reviewing “every single part, every single component” of its network.
He also said that “many more vulnerabilities are going to be found” over the next three years.
A member’s lapse could create a problem for “the entire network’s integrity”, Chauhan said about a broker having weak security. However, the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework (CSCRF), issued on August 20, 2024, already manages stockbrokers. Chauhan did not mention how the proposed task force would relate to or work with these obligations.
What did Chauhan ask brokers to do?
Chauhan said that cybersecurity should be treated as a main function of the business of ANMI.
He also said that NSE would support them alongside SEBI, adding: “We’ll still help you even if you don’t want to be helped.”
He asked brokers to:
- Build capability by developing in-house technical teams or bringing in external advisers.
- Focus on quantum computing as in the next two to three years, it would affect cryptographic systems such as SSL.
- Learn from the recent AI-based attacks abroad such as Japan declaring national emergency due to cyber hacking, or American banks being affected by AI-based “agentic” cyberattacks.
Chauhan was a part of the NSE’s founding team and recalled what he said in 1993-94:
That “technology is like riding a tiger. Ride is uncomfortable, but when you get down it eats you up.”
What is already required of brokers?
SEBI’s earlier cybersecurity circulars has been replaced by the CSCRF for regulated entities including stockbrokers. According to SEBI’s annual report for 2025-26, these entities have been onboarded to market security operations which are operated by NSE and BSE. A validation audit of around 13 stockbrokers was also conducted by SEBI that year.
A day after Chauhan’s speech, cybersecurity was linked to economic security during the inauguration of the Reserve Bank of India’s Data Centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute in Bhubaneswar, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Wars these days are not fought with weapons alone. If a country has to be weakened, that can also be done by attacking its economy,” Modi said, as per a post on X shared by the PMO.
He further added that India must protect its banking system from “cyber looters and cyber terrorists” (translated from Hindi).
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