A number of financial firms in London are set to be put through a ‘cyber attack war game’ scenario in a bid to test their ability to cope up with a major cyber attack.
Claimed to be one of the largest exercises of its kind in the world, the test, dubbed ‘Waking Shark II’, is scheduled to be carried out on 12 November, involving thousands of employees from the participating firms.
As part of tests, participating firms will be bombarded with a chain of announcements and scenarios, including the impact a major cyber attack on stock exchanges and open out on social media, Reuters reported.
The whole exercise would be co-ordinated from a single room teemed with officials from the Bank of England, the Treasury and Financial Conduct Authority.
Simulations would include determining the ability of banks to make sure the availability of money in the ATM machines or handle a liquidity crunch situation and how well the banks coordinate with officials and each other in such a situation.
In addition, the test will be mainly focused on investment banking operations.
Concerns about the threat of cyber crime to banking system has been on the rise, with increasing worries on the impact of coordinated online attacks or hacking attacks on particular banks.
However, the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee has already notified banks to build up defences.
In addition to London, New York also hosted ‘Quantum Dawn 2’ to simulate such excercises, to assess how firms would deal with major cyber attacks in markets.
