Banks must now prepare themselves for onslaughts of cyber strikes as criminals will try to exploit every potential disruption caused by the pandemic, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) has warned.
Christine Lagarde, the ECB’s president, has written to financial institutions warning of the “critical need” to plan for the impact of a pandemic which could trigger financial instability.
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There are several “plausible channels” through which a cyber-attack could morph into a serious financial crisis, Lagarde said, speaking in France yesterday.
A report by the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) estimates the global cost of cyber-attacks at between $45bn and $654bn, she said.
The report, which was set up by the European Commission, will look at how a cyber incident could, under certain circumstances, rapidly escalate from an operational outage to a liquidity crisis.
Operational efficacy will be tested
“Banks could be challenged in their operational capabilities in affected areas should employees be unable to perform their usual tasks,” said Andrea Enria, chair of the ECB supervisory board, in a letter sent this week.
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By GlobalDataThe letter also warned of the risk of “increased cyber-security related fraud” targeting both customers and banks through methods such as phishing emails.
A “potential higher reliance on remote banking” could also put companies’ IT systems under strain, Mr Enria added.
Firms are already taking action… while HMRC battles 5K email attacks daily
The coronavirus outbreak has already prompted companies to spread more employees across different offices or to ask them to work from home.
On Thursday, HBSC evacuated a floor of its London headquarters after an employee in the bank’s research division was diagnosed with coronavirus.
While banks have improved their defences against hackers in recent years, the ECB has called cybercrime and technology deficiencies some of the top risks for the industry this year.
In a parallel development, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the tax authority of the UK government, announced yesterday that it has been bombarded with 521,582 malicious email attacks over the last three months.
That averages to about 5,795 attempted assaults every day, seven days a week.
