The Bank of England has called for a “collective solution” to tackle cyber security threats similar to the “super shield” system used in the US.
Bank of England Supervisory Risk Specialists director Nick Strange said:
“A possible, and I only say possible, outcome of the cyber stress testing we are piloting may be that on their own, firms cannot meet the FPC’s proposed tolerance for payments system outage.
If this were the case then it would either fall to the public or private sector to come up with a collective solution.”
Sarah Armstrong-Smith, Head of Continuity & Resilience at Fujitsu UK & Ireland, commented to TFT:
“The Bank of England’s recent call for a collective effort to tackle cyberthreats is a step in the right direction that should be welcomed by all organisations – private or public. With the number of threats continuing to increase exponentially, customer trust has never been so valuable or hard to come by and as such it has never been more important for businesses to test and ensure they are protected appropriately. A fifth of the public believe that cybercrime is the biggest challenge facing the UK today, and there are certainly some lessons UK firms can learn from the American initiative ‘Sheltered Harbour’ to vault and protect customer data in the event of a cyber attack.
A collective solution to cybersecurity threats can help to enhance the operational resilience of the financial sector, and in turn, better protect customers and their data. With digital continuing to pave the way in financial services, the industry can no longer afford for it not to be the number one priority. Banks need to be able to identify, react and defend against a breach quickly, which includes stress-testing a range of scenarios, in collaboration with multiple stakeholders.”
