SECP opens 24/7 cybersecurity centre to guard its networks, servers and cloud systems

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has opened a Security Operations Center (SOC) that will watch its networks, servers and cloud systems 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to spot cyber threats and respond to attacks. NADRA chairman Lieutenant General Muhammad Munir Afsar inaugurated the centre in Islamabad on Tuesday 20 October, ProPakistani reported.

SECP chairman Dr Kabir Ahmed Sidhu, commissioners Imtiaz Haider, Muzaffar Ahmed Mirza and Zeeshan Khattak, and senior officials attended the opening.

What the SECP cybersecurity centre does

A security operations center is a team and a set of monitoring tools that sit over an organisation's systems around the clock, looking for intrusions, malware and unusual activity, and responding when something is found. For the SECP, that covers:

• Networks that link its offices and online services;
• Servers that hold company, market and licensing records;
• Cloud systems behind its digital services.

The centre was built to international standards with support from the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and developed with Karandaaz Pakistan, Inara Technologies and REWTERZ, according to the report.

Why it matters if you deal with the SECP

The SECP registers every company in Pakistan, licenses brokers, insurers, mutual funds, leasing firms and non-bank lenders, and supervises the stock exchange. Its online systems hold incorporation papers, beneficial ownership details, annual returns and complaint records, and more of that work now happens online.

For a business owner or investor, the practical stakes are:

1. Your filings. Company returns, director changes and incorporation documents sit on SECP systems. Round-the-clock monitoring is meant to keep those records available and unaltered.
2. Market confidence. An attack on a regulator can delay approvals or disclosures that investors depend on. If you follow the market, today's index is on our KSE-100 page.
3. Scams that use the SECP's name. Fraudsters often pose as the regulator. Earlier this month the SECP set up a Corporate Intelligence Unit to catch Ponzi schemes and unlicensed lenders early. Check any company or lender on the SECP's own website before you pay.

Next: a shared framework for the capital market

At a separate meeting, Sidhu briefed the NADRA chairman on the SECP's IT reforms, the modernisation of its infrastructure and its use of artificial intelligence to make doing business easier.

The SECP plans to bring capital market institutions, the bodies it regulates, under a shared cybersecurity framework. It also aims to work as a sectoral Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for Pakistan's capital markets: a point where cyber incidents in the sector are reported, tracked and handled together rather than by each firm alone.

No date has been given for either step, and the SECP has not said which institutions will be covered first. Neither the cost of the centre nor the size of its team was disclosed.

What to do now

• Use only official SECP channels for filings and payments, and type the address yourself instead of clicking links in messages.
• Report suspicious emails or calls claiming to be from the SECP to the commission directly.
• If you run a brokerage, fund or insurer, expect cybersecurity requirements to tighten once the shared framework is announced, and review your own incident plans now.