Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., wrote a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week and expressed his concerns over the cybersecurity of the stock market.
According to Business Insider, Warner sent SEC chairman Jay Clayton a letter that discussed Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (Reg SCI), a 2014 rule that centered on cybersecurity for the U.S. securities market.
"Reg SCI was intended to strengthen the technology infrastructure of the U.S. securities markets by reducing the occurrence of systems issues, particularly following several high-profile outages that had the potential to cause considerable harm to investor confidence," Warner wrote.
The Reg SCI rule requires trading venues to report things like hacking attempts and other cybersecurity threats. Warner told Clayton, who took office as head of the SEC in May, a successful hacking attempt of a trading venue could have dire consequences.
"This includes any broker-dealer operated ATS's, single-dealer internalizers, and wholesalers which handle a significant percentage of retail investor order flow and a high percentage of overall U.S. average daily volume," Warner wrote. "If compromised, these market centers could destabilize markets by not having the protections in place that the SEC has outlined in Reg SCI to strengthen the integrity of our markets."
President Donald Trump said last month he had reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tackle cybersecurity issues together. He later changed his tune and said the joint effort might not happen.