The United States and the United Kingdom came together this week to perform a large joint tabletop exercise to test how the two countries would respond in the event of a large cyber attack on the two countries’ financial systems.
Statements by both countries applauded the exercise, designed to “enhance processes and mechanisms for maintaining shared awareness of cyber security threats between U.S. and UK governments and the private sector.”
“The exercise was developed by U.S. and U.K. government representatives and industry and designed to improve common understanding across our governments and industry in three main areas: 1) incident response and recovery; 2) information sharing; and 3) public communications.” Participants included U.S. Treasury, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Secret Service, UK Treasury, Office of Security & Information Assurance, Bank of England, and financial institutions and industry groups from both countries, among others.