Editor’s Note: See, 2011 CircleID article, The Coming Cybersecurity Regulatory Revolution.
From: LegalWeek.com
Author: Jane Jenkins, Chris Forsyth and Anupreet Amole
With sensitive information increasingly vulnerable, companies should start to ramp up their cyber security
Late last year London’s largest financial institutions stress-tested their cyber security resilience with a series of ‘war games’ co-ordinated by financial regulators and Government officials. Bank staff had to respond to several simulated cyber incident scenarios, which included challenges such as the availability of cash from ATMs and coping with a liquidity freeze in the wholesale market.
Dubbed ‘Operation Waking Shark II’, the simulation – one of the largest ever conducted – emphasises the potential severity of cyber attacks affecting the financial markets. Along with a similar exercise carried out in New York – and plans for 200 US banks to participate in what amounts to a competition over which is best prepared to handle an attack – it signifies a growing awareness of cyber risk among Government, regulators and corporations.
Evolving risk
In recent years the world’s largest companies have been targeted by increasingly sophisticated hackers. Hacking is now widespread, with the attackers ranging from the intellectually curious to the politically motivated and more advanced organs of various nation states. The targets range from safety-critical processing systems in the energy sector to price-sensitive deal data in any sector.
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