The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Banque de France (BdF) and the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR) have carried out a joint crisis management exercise focused on cybersecurity threats.
The exercise follows a memorandum of understanding on cybersecurity signed by MAS, BdF and ACPR in November 2019.
The joint exercise tested the capabilities of the three financial authorities when responding to various scenarios such as ransomware, zero-day vulnerabilities and IT supply chain attacks. According to MAS, the global nature of cyber threats and the interconnectedness of countries' financial systems has made cross-border cooperation much more important to safeguard financial stability and the resilience of essential financial services.
“The joint exercise demonstrates the commitment of MAS, BdF and ACPR to sharpen our collective response to major cyber attacks targeted at financial institutions operating on a cross-border basis, through effective information sharing protocols,” said Vincent Loy, assistant managing director (technology), MAS. “Such close cooperation improves our ability to maintain operational resilience and stability in the global financial system.”
“The BdF's experience in cyber crisis management was very valuable for preparing this joint exercise with MAS, which fully confirmed the ability of our authorities to exchange and share information efficiently in times of crisis,” said Nathalie Aufauvre, director general for operations and financial stability, BdF. “Cyber risk being cross-border by nature, the conduct of international crisis exercises is essential to increase our level of readiness and collective cyber resilience, especially in this period of heightened cyber threats. The exercise also illustrates the diversity of our joint MAS-BdF cooperation after the opening of BdF’s office for Asia-Pacific in Singapore in 2020.”
