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Austrian Banks Defend Themselves in First Cyber Attack War Games

Austrian Banks Defend Themselves in First Cyber Attack War Games

(Bloomberg) -- Austrian banks were found to be “by and large” well prepared to defend themselves from hacker attacks after the country’s financial regulator staged its first cyber war game.

The one-day exercise consisted of 170 fake attacks launched by 100 experts, testing the defense of banks, technology providers and public authorities, financial regulator FMA and the central bank said in a statement. The scenarios included blackmail attempts helped by malicious software, attacks that targeted system software and online banking apps as well as the shutdown of ATMs and websites.

“The organizational designs have shown to be very diverse,” FMA co-heads Helmut Ettl and Klaus Kumpfmueller said in the statement. “The results will now be analyzed in detail and the consequences will be implemented in supervisory and regulatory activity.”

The test included 10 banks, their IT providers, the Austrian Computer Emergency Response Team and the interior ministry.

To contact the reporter on this story: Boris Groendahl in Vienna at bgroendahl@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Ross Larsen, Keith Campbell

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