AbiLab and Italian banks to lead REDFin cyber defence initiative
AbiLab and Italian banks to lead REDFin cyber defence initiative
AbiLab, the banking research and innovation centre promoted by the Associazione Bancaria Italiana (ABI, Italian Banking Association), will lead the new European “REDFin – Readiness Enhancement to Defend Financial Sector” project, aiming to strengthen the protection of the European banking and financial sector by defining innovative methods to analyse and prevent IT risks.
The initiative was created on a specific request put forward by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Programme to set up a sustainable and efficient European network in the sectors of transport, energy and digital services.
REDFin aims to strengthen the capacity of CERTFin, the CERT of the Italian financial sector promoted by ABI and the Bank of Italy, to prevent and respond to cyberattacks directed at the banking sector, defining and following operating models and methodologies to identify threatening scenarios, and promoting actions to strengthen the levels of awareness and resilience.
In the current digital financial ecosystem, AbiLab points out, the various parties are more and more interconnected, and the resilience of an organisation does not just depend on its characteristics but also on those of its suppliers. Defining a common simulation methodology will bolster the effectiveness of the coordination among operators, CERTFin and authorities.
The working methodology will take into account the standards defined at European level as part of the European Intelligence Driven Red Team Testing Framework, promoted by the European Central Bank (ECB), as well as some frameworks currently used or being defined at important entities such as the central banks of Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.
The REDFin project will involve AbiLab, CERTFin and a sample of banks.
According to AbiLab, Italian banks invested more than €300 million in their cybersecurity efforts in 2017.
