Eurozone banks have room for improvement in cybersecurity ECB's first investigation: Reuters

[FRANKFURT 26th Reuters] - The European Central Bank (ECB) expressed the view on the 26th that there is “room for improvement” with regard to the cybersecurity of banks in the Eurozone, starting with how to continue operations in the event of a hacker attack.

In response to the increase in cyber attacks, the ECB conducted the first stress test to investigate banks' responses to cyber risk.

The 109 target lines were asked to provide detailed information on how to deal with and recover, such as invoking crisis management procedures and restoring normal operations when receiving a cyber attack.

The ECB then scrutinized the information provided and made specific recommendations to each bank as part of the supervisory evaluation carried out every year. Regarding the test results, members of the ECB Supervisory Board stated on their blog that “although banks have prepared high-level response and recovery systems, they showed a situation where there is still room for improvement.”

According to the ECB, specific recommendations were made to banks such as formulating business continuity plans assuming cyber attacks, strengthening recovery measures, and detailed studies on external providers.

It is said that there are banks that have already taken corrective measures for the shortcomings found in the stress test or are making plans to correct them.

In order to make it a form that does not give advantageous information to hackers, the specific names of banks that were investigated were not disclosed, and almost no cybersecurity shortcomings have been clarified.