UK & US Banks Prepare For Cyber Attack Stress Test

Finance centres in London and New York are going to be hit with a simulated cyber attack later this month.

The stress test is designed to see how the City and Wall Street interact in an emergency caused by hackers, or a major problem with IT systems.

According to the Government's cyber security body, CERT-UK, an exact scenario for the exercise is yet to be determined.
A spokesman explained: "It is testing how we would react to 'x' scenario, how our colleagues in the US would react, and how we would then co-ordinate communications with each other.
"There will be no testing of cash machines coming down, banks coming down or anything like that."
The Bank of England, the US Treasury, as well as intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic will be involved in the simulation.

In January, David Cameron and Barack Obama pledged to deepen cyber security ties, amid concerns banks are not doing enough to bolster their defences against an online attack.
They announced plans to create a rolling programme of simulated war games involving attacks on the City and Wall Street to test their resilience.

Companies on both sides of the Atlantic have shown their vulnerability to hacking in recent weeks.
TalkTalk fell victim to a "significant and sustained" attack which saw about 1.2 million customer email addresses, names and phone numbers accessed – along with about 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes.
Meanwhile, over in the States, a massive data breach exposed the sensitive personal data of 15 million T-Mobile US customers.
Sky: http://bit.ly/1GYOI7U