Fabio Panetta: The quick and the dead - building up cyber resilience in the financial sector

Introductory remarks by Mr Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the meeting of the Euro Cyber Resilience Board for pan-European Financial Infrastructures, Frankfurt am Main, 8 March 2023. 

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
08 March 2023
by Fabio Panetta
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  |  6 pages

The proliferation of cyber threat actors combined with an increase in remote working and greater digital interconnectedness is raising the risk, frequency and severity of cyberattacks. Increasingly, cyber criminals are launching ransomware attacks and demanding payment in crypto. Cyberattacks related to geopolitical developments – Russia's aggression against Ukraine in particular – have also become a more common feature of the cyber-threat landscape.

The Euro Cyber Resilience Board for pan-European Financial Infrastructures (ECRB) has played a key role in protecting the security and integrity of the financial system from these threats. The last three years have shown that we can work under adverse conditions towards a common goal. Our financial infrastructures have proven their resilience to cyber threats. But this does not mean we can become complacent or any less vigilant in the face of cyber threats. We simply cannot afford to fall behind the curve: cybersecurity must be the backbone of digital finance.

Today I will take stock of the ECRB's work. I will then discuss current cyber threats and emerging risks before outlining the implications for our work in the future.

The contribution of the Euro Cyber Resilience Board

The ECRB brings together private and public stakeholders across pan-European financial infrastructures, critical service providers, central banks and other authorities. This offers a unique prism through which the ECRB can identify and fix any weaknesses which cyberattacks could potentially exploit in order to propagate, which in turn would cause systemic ripples throughout the European financial ecosystem.