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SWACHA TO HELP FIGHT CYBER-CRIMINALS IN NATIONWIDE CYBER ATTACK SIMULATION EXERCISE FOR FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
More Than 600 Financial Institutions Anticipated to Participate in This Year’s Exercise.
DALLAS, September 05, 2014 -- SWACHA, one of the largest not-for-profit regional payment associations in the country, has joined with Reston, Va.-based Financial Service-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) to support the 2014 Cyber Attack Against Payment Processes (CAPP) simulation exercise designed to help financial institutions assess their readiness to ward off cyber-attacks. This is the fifth year SWACHA has joined forces with FS-ISAC to sponsor this event. For two consecutive days on September 9-10 or September 16-17, hundreds of financial institutions across the country will respond to simulated cyber security attacks to assess their response procedures. The exercise is offered at no cost to qualified financial institutions.
“The CAPP exercise is a highly realistic way to determine if your financial institution’s critical response team is able to effectively respond to cyber-attacks,” said Dennis Simmons, AAP, CEO of SWACHA. “As we have seen recently, staying ahead of potential threats is essential to protect financial institutions and their customers.”
According to Simmons, more than 600 financial institutions participated in last year’s event, more than any other year since the exercise was launched in 2010.
“According to a July report in The New York Times, a Russian gang was discovered to have the largest known collection of stolen internet credentials, consisting of 1.2 billion usernames and passwords, and more than 500 million email addresses, said Simmons. “It was reported the hackers amassed data on a wide range of businesses; from large entities to small business. It is clear cyber-criminals are continuing to advance their strategies and techniques. “Regulators are increasingly in favor of financial institutions participating in FS-ISAC exercises as they help measure and improve responses to cyber-attacks on electronic payment processes. As a leading resources on electronic payments, we want to try to assist financial institutions reduce their risks and we believe the CAPP exercise is one of the most effective ways to do that.”
About SWACHA:
SWACHA is a leading not-for-profit Regional Payments Association celebrating 40 years of serving approximately 1,000 members across the Southwest. SWACHA is the resource of choice for financial institutions and corporations in the areas of education, training, payments system risks and knowledge about electronic payments. For more information, visit:
Web: www.swacha.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bringingpaymentstogether
Twitter: @SWACHA
About FS-ISAC:
Founded in 1999, FS-ISAC is constantly gathering reliable and timely information from financial services providers, commercial security firms, federal, state and local government agencies, law enforcement and other trusted resources; the FS-ISAC is now uniquely positioned to quickly disseminate physical and cyber threat alerts and other critical information to your organization. This information includes analysis and recommended solutions from leading industry experts.