Last week, Benjamin Lawsky announced that he would be stepping down as the top financial regulator in New York, after four years of heading the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Lawsky has been at the forefront of implementing stricter cyber security guidelines for financial institutions conducting business in New York and plans to open a legal and cyber security consulting firm. He has also accepted a position as a visiting lecturer at Stanford University’s ‘Cyber Initiative’.
In last few weeks of his tenure, he intends to propose new banking and insurance cyber security regulations by the end of 2015. While speaking at the Reuters Financial Regulation Summit in New York, Lawsky said the new regulations would enhance security and stop hacking, “the one thing we find to be an existential threat right now is whether our financial institutions and systems are adequately protected when it comes to cyber security.”