The US Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) recently concluded a cross-border cybersecurity exercise, which took place between 25 and 27 April. The exercise aimed to assess and fortify existing information exchange and incident response coordination protocols in the event of cyber incidents impacting banks operating in both countries.

In light of increasing cyber threats to financial services and the interdependence of the United States and Singapore’s financial ecosystems, prompt and effective collaboration during a cross-border cyber incident is crucial for a swift response and successful recovery of affected operations. The exercise was conducted in line with the Memorandum of Understanding on Cybersecurity Cooperation, signed by the Treasury and MAS in August 2021.

“This exercise is a significant step forward for the cyber partnership between the United States and Singapore, representing an effort to bolster cybersecurity cooperation and our ability to communicate in response to a significant cross-border incident,”

commented Todd Conklin, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection at Treasury.

“We must have a coordinated international response to the increase in threats, as the interconnectedness of our financial systems makes us only as strong as our weakest endpoints.”

 

“As the United States and Singapore are major international financial hubs where a number of global systemically important banks operate in, the cyber resiliency of these institutions in the respective countries has systemic implications on financial stability globally,”

Vincent Loy, Assistant Managing Director (Technology) at MAS, stated.

The exercise is a key milestone in Treasury and MAS’ continued and close cooperation to strengthen our collective cybersecurity preparedness, and to safeguard financial stability.”

In the aftermath of the joint exercise, the Treasury and MAS analysed the lessons learned, considered potential improvements, discussed the possibility of including other international partners in future exercises, and examined additional opportunities for deepening cybersecurity cooperation, such as conducting bilateral workshops on cybersecurity policies and protocols.

This article first appeared on fintechnews.sg