CFTC Issues Cybersecurity Rules On System Safeguards Testing Requirements

On September 8, 2016, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) approved amendments (“Final Rules”) to its ”system safeguards rules.” The system safeguards rules obligate designated contract markets, swap execution facilities, and swap data repositories (for convenience, collectively referred to as “Exchanges”) as well as derivatives clearing organizations (“Clearinghouses”) to have in place cybersecurity programs of risk analysis and oversight. As part of such a program, Exchanges and Clearinghouses (collectively, “Covered Entities”) must conduct testing and review sufficient to ensure their automated systems are reasonably reliable and secure, and have adequate scalable capacity.