Indian Stock Exchanges Unscathed by Global Cybersecurity Outage: Insights on Resilience and IT Spending

A CrowdStrike cybersecurity update caused system shutdowns for devices with Microsoft Windows on July 20, affecting many exchanges but not India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Despite lower IT spending, the Indian exchanges remained operational, highlighting the importance of system diversity. Sanjeev Sanyal, from the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, emphasized this resilience and proposed a comprehensive framework for AI regulation, underscoring the complexity of AI systems.

5 Key Points

1. A CrowdStrike cybersecurity update led to widespread shutdowns for Microsoft Windows devices, but NSE and BSE were unaffected.
2. NSE’s IT expenditure is significantly lower than international counterparts like LSEG, NASDAQ, and HKEX.
3. The resilience of Indian exchanges underscores the value of system diversity in mitigating disruptions.
4. Sanjeev Sanyal proposed an AI regulation framework, emphasizing the complexity and unpredictability of AI systems.
5. Sebi’s IT spending is considerably less than other international regulatory bodies, such as ASIC and MAS.