SEBI says cybersecurity now also board room issue, need caution in AI deployment

New Delhi: Cybersecurity is no longer only an IT-related challenge but also a board-level issue, Sebi Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on Monday, cautioning that proper care should be taken while deploying artificial intelligence in critical infrastructure.

Pandey underlined that automation in cyber defence introduces more risks, and AI for cyber security must "itself be secure, governed and accountable."

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Speaking at the inauguration of a symposium for cyber defence organized by Sebi at its capacity building body National Institute of Securities Markets near here, Pandey said "we need to look at cybersecurity more from a collective perspective than merely individual lens".

"Cybersecurity is no longer only an IT issue. It is a board-level issue. It is a business-continuity issue. It is a market-integrity issue. It is an investor-confidence issue," Pandey said.

He urged fellow regulators, as also countries, to share the best practices when he said that any good practice, when developed, should become a reference point for others.

"In cyberspace, our collective resilience depends on the strength of the connections between us," he said.

Artificial intelligence, agentic systems, automation, advanced analytics

and eventually quantum technologies will change the way cyber defence is conducted in the future, Pandey said.

"We ought to use these technologies responsibly to build systems that can identify anomalies, correlate intelligence, prioritise vulnerabilities, recommend actions and, where appropriate and properly governed, initiate defensive responses,"Pandey said.

"But as we introduce more autonomy, we also introduce new risks. Therefore, AI for cybersecurity must itself be secure, governed and accountable," he said.

He highlighted the risks to cybersecurity in the era of quantum computing, and added that Sebi as well as other regulators have started to build defences when computing itself undergoes a huge change.

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Quantum computing may challenge some of the cryptographic assumptions on which today's digital systems are built, Pandey said.

"..the concern is not only about the day when a sufficiently powerful quantum computer becomes available. The concern is also about data that can be captured today and potentially decrypted in the future.That is why post-quantum cryptography cannot remain a research topic for tomorrow," he said.

"We need to use "crypto-agility", or the ability to change cryptographic algorithms without redesigning the entire system," he said, underlining that "quantum readiness is a resilience programme, not a science-fiction exercise".

The regulator has launched a revamped 'SEBI Incident Reporting Portal' designed to make reporting more structured, timely and actionable, and also the 'Cyber Suraksha Portal' initiative is intended to create a central hub for sharing cybersecurity knowledge, vulnerability warnings, policy measures and incident insights across the securities market ecosystem.

He urged the system to cooperate, prepare and respond to cyberthreats with the aim of developing faster evolution of cyber defences.

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