Even though many cyber-attacks inevitably succeed the Bank Of Canada is looking to reduce their risk. They have recovery mechanisms in place to limit as much damage as possible and get the financial system back up and running, as claimed by the central bank on Wednesday.
Chief Operating Officer Filipe Dinis, said in a speech to Payments Canada Summit in Toronto that, “The bank is devoting more time and attention to the threats to financial stability posed by cyber-attacks, given the steady increase in the scope and seriousness of attacks worldwide.”
He also advised that investments are continuing in order to ensure that the bank itself is resilient to cyber-security threats and that the financial market infrastructure overseen by the bank also mitigate the threats. He states that the bank is collaborating with regulatory and oversight bodies and participants at home and abroad.
Dinis said that, “Canada’s six largest banks are collaborating to test and enhance the resilience of the wholesale payments ecosystem.”
He further added in prepared notes for the speech that, “The goal is to have a rapid, collaborative approach to recovery should a key participant be affected by a serious cyber security event, such as the corruption of critical data that results in a prolonged operational outage.”
Dinis claims that “The bank helped to create the Joint Operational Resilience Management Program along with the Finance Department, financial market infrastructure owned by Payments Canada, and large Canadian banks, and last year ran an exercise to test escalation and communication protocols during a systemic crisis.”
The exercise however found inadequacies in the financial sectors ability to control and coordinate action in the event of a major attack.
Dinis said, “It such a stressful time, the last thing we want is confusion and ambiguity. We are now developing improved protocols to address this shortcoming. It is no longer enough for each institution to maintain its own alarm system. While doing so provides a certain level of protection and comfort, we need to invest in system-wide defenses,”
The Bank of Canada are doing what many experts have recommended by increasing their investment into cyber-security and supporting this within the financial sector where others such as the energy sector may not be despite increased threat, but are they are doing enough to prepare for potential cyber-attacks, only time will tell.
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