Are markets ready for cyber threats?

The financial services industry has been doing more than other industries to beef up cybersecurity, former FBI adviser Paul Tiao said Thursday after the Nasdaq experienced a three-hour outage.

"We have no indication at this point that it's anything but an internal technical glitch. So, from a cybersecurity standpoint, this is a good day for the market," he said. "The Nasdaq was only down for three or four hours. They're back up. The markets are up in general. And there's no indication that a cybersecurity threat was behind this."

Stocks ended the day higher, logging their second-best day in August.

Tiao, now at Hunton & Williams as a partner in the privacy and data security practice group, said that the industry has been in the forefront of working to combat cyber threats.

(Read more: Nasdaq shuts down, but stock market shrugs it off)

"Based on my experiences in the FBI and my experience representing financial services companies and other companies in the critical infrastructure sectors, no industry is doing more than the financial services industry to prevent a significant cybersecurity incident that undercuts core systems or undercuts confidence in the market," he said.

"So, they are putting in best-of-breed information security policies, and they are working across the industry to share information in a way that many other industries are not."

On CNBC's "Fast Money," Tiao said that the sector was working with a broad array of governmental agencies to improve response times, as well.

(Read more: 'Be outraged' over Nasdaq snafu: Brian Kelly)

"They are doing significant tabletop exercises with other industry sectors and with the government to make sure that they are able to respond quickly," he said. "And they're working with the government, with the FBI, with the Secret Service, with the Homeland Security Department and the Treasury Department and other parts of the government to make sure that they've got the best information out there to make sure that they're protecting our ability to use the markets, to believe in the markets and to rely on the markets to make our investment decisions."

Brian Kelly of Brian Kelly Capital noted that one stock had seen a bounce on news of the Nasdaq's outage: Symantec.

(Read more: Get you stock 'buy' list ready: Mike Murphy)

"I think you can go long this," he said. "Use $25.80 as your stop."

— By CNBC's Bruno J. Navarro. Follow him on Twitter @Bruno_J_Navarro.