ECB to test banks for cyber resilience, Enria says

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank plans to test the cyber resilience of the euro zone’s top banks after a sharp rise in cyberattacks, including after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ECB supervisory chief Andrea Enria told a Lithuanian newspaper.

“Next year we are launching a thematic stress test on cyber resilience, which will try to test how banks are able to respond to and recover from a successful cyberattack,” Enria told Verslo žinios.

Since the European Union passed a string of sanctions against Russia over their invasion of Ukraine, the ECB has been warning banks about cyberattacks.

“There has been a significant increase in cyberattacks,” Enria declared. “We cannot apportion this to any specific source, but it is a fact that the number of these attacks has increased since the war started.”

Enria explained that part the problem was that some banks outsource critical IT infrastructure to external providers and other members of their group.

However, banks are vulnerable if they become disconnected from their counterparts quickly.

Enria indicated that results from the test would be due in the middle 2024.

Reporting by Balazs Koanyi, Editing by Toby Chopra