Swift - the non-profit co-operative which is owned by about 11,000 banks and other financial institutions and is vital to the functioning the global banking system - it processes 25milion messages each day in the context of high-value cross-border money transfers - has decided to publish a 5-point-action plan to bring forward cyber security strategy in the banking industry. The plan will be presented by the CEO of Swift, Gottfried Leibbrandt.
After having discovered three major cyber attacks against members of the global bank payment messaging network in the last 18 months, Swift is concerned about the banking industry being an attractive and vulnerable target of cyber attacks.
In order to react to this situation and to considerably reduce the network's vulnerability, Swift, in the announced action plan, argues for information sharing in the global financial community and increased security requirements for consumer-managed software. In addition, Swift intends to support their banking members in being able to detect cyber incidents and in developing suitable "security audit frameworks".
Cyber attacks are increasing across most industries. Companies should be aware of this and implement a cyber policy. Swift’s announced plan to support their clients in detecting cyber incidents should help banks in dealing with this going forward.