The WannaCry cyber attack this month did not hit financial
services (FS) firms as directly as it did some other industries,
but its sheer scale across more than 150 countries and the level of
disruption caused by the ransomware it deployed will force all
businesses to re-examine their preparation for a major cyber event.
In financial services, an industry characterised by the highest
levels of interconnectivity, enhancing cyber resilience has been an
urgently growing priority for firms and their boards.
Financial regulators are playing a large part in pushing this
forward, with 2016 and 2017 seeing a flurry of new rules and
heightened expectations for how FS firms manage their cyber
resilience. Importantly, however, regulators and supervisors are
also starting to take a closer look at how effectively FS boards
engage on cyber risk issues and how non-executive directors (NEDs)
access the necessary expertise to be able to provide oversight and
challenge of management
