Federal and state regulators are ramping up plans to train bank examiners about cybersecurity risks at a time when the financial institutions they oversee face growing threats from hackers, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The government agencies are also hiring information-technology experts who may be better equipped to analyze a bank’s preparedness against such threats than traditional examiners, who have long focused on other issues, such as the quality of a loan portfolio. “This is front and center for state banking commissioners,” said Mary Beth Quist, a senior vice president at the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, a national group that is helping to arrange its first one-day cybersecurity summit for senior regulators and bank officials in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. Although cybersecurity protection has long been an issue that examiners track, the issue has taken on a bigger focus in recent months following a rash of incidents, including a data breach at JPMorgan Chase & Co. this summer that exposed contact information for 76 million households. (Subscription required.)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/states-u-s-beef-up-cybersecurity-trainin…
For more on cyber security risks and financial institutions, be sure to attend this week’s Winter Leadership Conference featuring former White House CIO Theresa Payton delivering her keynote, “Privacy in the Age of Big Data.” Click here to register: http://www.abiworld.org/WLC14/