The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) has today emphasised at its Cyber-Security Symposium the growing significance and potential threat of cyber risks for the financial market and urges all stakeholders to strengthen their networking in the prevention of cyber risks. Along with the rapidly advancing digitalisation of financial services their susceptibility to attacks from cyber space is also increasing. Around three quarters of the companies in the Austrian financial market claim to have already been the victim of cyber attacks. On an international level, the financial sector is also a prioritised target. The spectrum of attacks ranges from instances of online fraud, the theft of sensitive customer data, through to the temporary paralysing of websites of the blocking of entire IT systems by malware.
“The financial market acts as the circulatory system of a functioning economy. Its ability to function must therefore be protected and its resilience against cyber attacks must be further increased. We are working together with all involved parties – the companies active in the financial market, the institutions responsible for public security, and academia”, remarked the FMA’s Executive Directors, Helmut Ettl and Klaus Kumpfmüller.
The FMA Cyber-Security Symposium is an important component in such efforts, and contributes towards teh necessary networking between all involved bodies. Around 200 representatives from Austrian banks, European financial supervisory authorities, and institutions from the cyber security sector and academia are participating at the event. It is part of the FMA’s multi-year focus on IT security. This year the FMA has already published Guides with strict requirements for IT and cyber security in the companies across all its areas of supervision in all sectors of the financial market. Such requirements and their implementation will be reviewed by the FMA in the coming year. At the start of 2019, an exercise is planned for the first time, in which the FMA will simulate the handling of a cyber incident together with representatives of the banking sector.
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