ADVERTISEMENT

Denmark Hires Hackers to Test If Bank Systems Are Sitting Ducks

Denmark Hires Hackers to Test If Bank Systems Are Sitting Ducks

(Bloomberg) -- Denmark’s central bank and the country’s lenders plan to enlist “ethical hackers” to test the resilience of the country’s financial industry to cyberattacks.

The Nordic nation is among the handful of European countries where cash is fast becoming obsolete. It’s only used in roughly 20 percent of all transactions, according to central bank data.

The hackers will conduct “realistic” assaults on the most important banks and on essential parts of the financial infrastructure, according to a statement by the central bank. Danmarks Nationalbank, which monitors financial stability, is taking the lead after concluding that cyberattacks constitute a significant risk.

The testing program, called TIBER-DK, was developed by the European Central Bank, and Denmark will join Belgium to become the first countries to implement the program, Danmarks Nationalbank said. (Tiber stands for Threat Intelligence-based Ethical Red Teaming.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Frances Schwartzkopff in Copenhagen at fschwartzko1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net, Christian Wienberg

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.