The Hong Kong Securities together with Futures Commission (SFC) has announced a review programme to ascertain the “cybersecurity preparedness” of securities brokers. The SFC was spurred into activeness next multiple incidents of unauthorized securities transactions taking house on compromised trading accounts:
“In the past times 12 months, sixteen incidents were reported involving 7 securities brokers together with full unauthorized trades inward excess of $100 million. These cases are nether law investigation.”
The means has issued a round down on how licensed securities brokers tin deploy additional safety procedures to thwart attacks on mobile together with online trading infrastructure. As business office of the review, the SFC volition endure issuing a questionnaire to modest together with medium equity, futures together with forex brokers & traders.
Additionally, onsite inspections at certainly brokerages volition endure carried out past times the SFC to attempt out trading information technology infrastructure together with fraud prevention systems.
The
SFC circular states:
“Special focus volition endure placed on protection of client online trading accounts covering, inter alia, authentication, password policy together with associated controls together with preparation to staff together with clients.”
Part of the review volition also compare existing fiscal regulations inward Hong Kong against those of other fiscal centers together with jurisdictions. The finding of the review volition endure shared past times the SFC inward workshops together with manufacture conferences.
While the SFC volition endure focusing on regulated fiscal entities inward the legacy fiscal system, the agency’s inaugural comes 2 months afterward 1 of the biggest thefts took house at Hong Kong-based
BitFinex, a digital currency exchange, which lost simply about $70 1 K m worth of customers’ Bitcoin when its servers were breached past times hackers.