Arihant IntellectWebsite Security for SEBI-Registered Intermediaries: A Practical Guide
Your website is the public face of a SEBI-regulated business — and it holds or links to sensitive client information. A defaced homepage, a spoofed email, or a few hours of downtime isn’t just embarrassing; for a regulated intermediary it’s a trust and compliance problem. The good news: most attacks are preventable with a handful of well-known controls.
This applies to you if you are…
Cyber-hygiene expectations under SEBI apply across the board — not only to large brokers:
Why intermediaries are targeted
Financial-sector websites are attractive because they carry credibility and client data. Attackers want one of three things: to impersonate you (phishing your clients), to deface or take down your site (reputational damage), or to steal data or credentials. Threat activity also tends to rise around high-profile national events, when opportunistic and automated attacks increase across Indian websites generally.
The threats, in plain language
- Phishing & email spoofing. Fake emails that look like they’re from you (or a regulator), used to trick clients or staff into handing over credentials, documents, or money.
- Website defacement / intrusion. Attackers exploit unpatched software or weak input handling to change your pages or plant malicious files.
- Denial-of-service (DDoS). Floods of junk traffic that knock your site offline.
- Malware & credential theft. Malicious attachments, drive-by downloads, or weak passwords that hand over access to your systems.
What SEBI expects
SEBI’s Cyber Security and Cyber Resilience Framework (CSCRF) asks regulated entities to protect their IT systems, websites and client data, with the depth of controls scaled to the size of the entity. Even a solo Research Analyst or Investment Adviser is expected to follow basic cyber-hygiene — secure hosting, strong authentication, backups, and an ability to respond to an incident. Always confirm the requirements applicable to your category on the official SEBI website.
The practical security checklist
1. Website & server
- ✓ Keep the web server, database and language runtime (e.g. PHP) on the latest patched versions.
- ✓ Put a Web Application Firewall (WAF) in front of the site.
- ✓ Validate and sanitise every input; show generic error messages (stops SQL-injection and info leaks).
- ✓ Restrict file uploads to an allow-list of types and store them where they can’t be executed.
- ✓ Turn on logging and file-integrity monitoring so unauthorised changes are noticed.
- ✓ Run a security audit periodically and after any major change.
2. Email & accounts
- ✓ Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC so nobody can spoof your domain.
- ✓ Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) on email, hosting and admin logins.
- ✓ Train yourself and staff to verify unusual requests (especially for credentials, documents or payments) through a second channel — AI-generated phishing and deepfakes are now common.
- ✓ Watch out for look-alike / typosquatted domains impersonating your brand.
3. Availability (DDoS)
- ✓ Serve the site through a CDN with DDoS protection and rate-limiting.
- ✓ Know your normal traffic baseline and monitor for sudden surges.
- ✓ Keep your host/ISP contacts handy and a business-continuity plan ready.
4. Data & recovery
- ✓ Keep verified, offline backups you have actually tested restoring.
- ✓ Have a simple incident-response plan — who to call, how to take the site offline, how to report to CERT-In.
- ✓ Store secrets (passwords, API keys) out of the website code, never in a public repository.
As your developer, here’s how we harden your site
Security isn’t a plugin you bolt on later — it’s how the site is built and hosted. This is what Arihant Intellect does by default:
- Static-first architecture. For most compliance sites we build a static site with no database and no server-side code — which removes the entire class of SQL-injection, web-shell and defacement attacks. There’s simply nothing to break into.
- Enterprise CDN + WAF + DDoS protection. We host on infrastructure (e.g. Cloudflare) that provides a global CDN, an always-on Web Application Firewall, automatic DDoS mitigation and free, always-on HTTPS.
- Hardened dynamic apps. Where a backend is genuinely needed, we keep the database outside the web root, put no secrets in the code repository, rate-limit logins, validate all input, and lock down file uploads.
- Security headers. HSTS, Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options and friends, so browsers enforce safe behaviour.
- Email authentication. We configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your domain so your mail is trusted and hard to spoof.
- Backups & version control. Every deploy is versioned and reversible, so a bad change or an incident can be rolled back in minutes.
- Periodic audits. We re-check security and accessibility as part of ongoing support.
Get a free website security check
We’ll review your current site for the basics above — hosting, HTTPS, email spoofing protection and exposure — and tell you where you stand, no obligation.
Request a free check on WhatsAppFrequently asked questions
Does SEBI require intermediaries to secure their websites?
Yes — SEBI’s CSCRF expects regulated entities to protect their systems, websites and client data, scaled to the size of the entity. Confirm your category’s requirements on sebi.gov.in.
My site is just a one-page compliance site — do I still need this?
Yes. Even a static page can be defaced, impersonated, or have its email domain spoofed. A well-built static site on a hardened host removes most of the risk at very low cost.
What should I do if I suspect an attack?
Preserve logs, take the affected system offline if needed, restore from a trusted backup, and report the incident to CERT-In. Having a plan ready in advance is half the battle.
This article is general information for awareness, not legal, compliance or security-certification advice. Arihant Intellect is a web & IT service provider, not a SEBI-registered intermediary, and does not provide investment advice. Verify all regulatory requirements with official SEBI and CERT-In sources.