BSE, NSE cut website access outside India ahead of ‘Operation Sindoor’
Summary
The National Stock Exchange and BSE have blocked access to their websites from overseas locations to prevent cyber attacks, effective Tuesday. This decision follows increased tensions after recent attacks on Pakistan-occupied territories, with access remaining restricted until further notice.
The National Stock Exchange and BSE have barred access to their respective websites from all overseas locations to safeguard against cyber attacks effective Tuesday, two people said.
The development came a day before the Indian defence forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, raining a barrage of missiles on terror camps in mainland Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir a fortnight after terrorists killed more than two dozen tourists in Kashmir’s Pahalgam area.
“BSE being a critical market infrastructure institution (MII) proactively and continuously monitors risks at domestic and international level for potential cyber threats," a spokesperson for the stock exchange told Mint.
“Based on such monitoring of cyber traffic, as a precautionary and protective measure, websites/locations are blocked to protect users and systems. The monitoring is dynamic and access is restored on a case-to-case basis subject to assessment of the threat," the spokesperson added.
An NSE spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Access to be website will continue to be barred outside India “until further notice", said one of the people mentioned above.
NSE is India’s largest stock exchange with a 93.6% share in the equity cash segment. On the derivatives segment, in equity options, the market share based on premium turnover was 87.4% in 2024-25, per exchange data.
BSE, which is ratcheting up its share in the equity options space, accounted for the rest.
Also read | India resilient to economic fallout from escalating tensions with Pakistan
Markets unfazed
India’s benchmark indices avoided any knee-jerk reaction on Wednesday despite India's overnight attacks on Pakistani terror camps.
The Nifty 50 ended the day's trading session up 0.15% at 24,416.15 points, while the Sensex inched up similarly to 80,762 points. Fear gauge India Vix traded down 0.4% to 18.92.
The expiry on Thursday is expected at 100 points plus or minus from 24,400.
"Markets are not pricing in an escalation, for now, but if the conflict intensifies, there could be a negative reaction," said Nilesh Shah, managing director, Kotak Mahindra AMC.
Shah said most fund managers today don't have the experience of witnessing a full-fledged India-Pakistan conflict like in 1962 or 1971, but only of the 1999 Kargil war, when India evicted the enemy from its territory without crossing the line of control, or the international border between the two nations.
India's stock markets rose 38% between May and July 1999 despite the hostilities, recovering from a 15% correction in the January-March period of that year on concerns of a cross-border attack by India.
