Warnings Echoed of Risk to Global Financial System From Cyber Attacks

A recent report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace cautioned about the vulnerability of the global financial system to cyber attacks. The report follows a simulation of that very scenario by the World Economic Forum.

A similar warning was issued by the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) whose members include Bank of America,  (BAC)  Wells Fargo,  (WFC,)  and CitiGroup,  (C) . 

The primary conclusion of the reports by these and other think tanks is to promote greater coordination among financial authorities, the financial industry, law enforcement, and national security agencies. 

Advisors to the joint WEF-Carnegie Endowment project include representatives of the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), banks like JP Morgan Chase,JP Morgan Chase Bank of America, law enforcement organizations such as INTERPOL and the US Secret Service, and corporate giants like Amazon,  (AMZN)  and Accenture,  (ACN) . 

As the WEF-Carnegie Initiative report states, “protecting the international financial system can be a model for other sectors,” adding that “focusing on the financial sector provides a starting point and could pave the way to better protect other sectors in the future.”

The consolidation of authorities on this level raises red flags for many privacy rights organizations who believe that the use of technologies such as facial recognition, biometric IDs and vaccine passports can further erode personal privacy and increase data collection on individuals.

The balance of privacy and security is one that continues to be debated.