In today’s business landscape, a cyberattack is now noted as the most prominent risk to every financial system in the world. It is considered higher than the lending and liquidity risks that resulted in the financial crisis of 2008, as stated by the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell.
The assessment of the world’s leading banking officials emphasized how the current threat due to hacking has become the top concern, even in the highest reaches of the government.
In an interview aired on US television, Powell said that the world has substantially changed from the days of the Great Recession. Powell stated that the risk the federal government has their eyes on the most now is cyber risk.
He also stated that we should all worry about a cyberattack or event and that many government agencies and organizations, this includes the Fed and every large or small private businesses and all global private and public financial companies as they are being targeted, in particular, monitoring has to be done very carefully and has to be invested heavily in. He also mentioned that the cyber landscape is where the risk is now, more than something that looked like a global financial crisis.
Powell shared a possible nightmare scenario where hacker’s cyberattack managed to successfully shut down a major payment or financial processor – this could handicap the flow of money from one major financial institution to another.
This scenario could shut down other dependent sectors or even broad chains of financial systems.
Governments, public and private organizations and businesses are increasing their cyber protection efforts for those types of cyber threats. Powell also stated that so much time and energy are spent on guarding network and other infrastructure assets every day on every major institution now. And the US government is working hard on that regard.
Moreover, many major private sector companies have increased their projected budget and effort on dealing with the current cyber threats and attacks. Cyberattacks are now part of the big picture of today’s risk of having another global financial crisis..
