The ECB concluded its cyber resilience stress test on 109 banks

The European Central Bank (ECB) concluded today its cyber resilience stress test, which assessed how banks would respond to and recover from a severe but plausible cybersecurity incident. A total of 109 banks were tested, with 28 undergoing more extensive testing. The overall results showed that banks have response and recovery frameworks in place, but areas for improvement remain. These findings will be integrated into the ECB's 2024 Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) and will help banks to gain a better understanding of their cyber resilience strengths and weaknesses.

The stress test, launched in January 2024, involved a fictitious scenario where all preventive measures failed and a cyberattack severely affected the databases of each bank's core systems. The focus was on evaluating the banks' response and recovery capabilities, rather than their preventive measures.