U.k Tripartite Authorities Plan To Conduct Cyber-attack Based War Game Exercise

By Author: iClass
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The prevailing security situation demands proactive steps by countries to ensure secure organization of various national and international events including sports events. Important events face threat from both the physical and Internet based attacks. London is going to host the next Olympic Games in 2012. Authorities in London are planning to conduct a market-wide war game exercise involving 70 financial firms in the month of November this year. The exercise will test the preparedness of the institutions in dealing with employee absentee, transport chaos, high use of Internet and communication channels that may exist during the London Olympic Games.

The war game exercise will be based on an Olympic physical and cyber-attack scenario. The tests will also include the elements of financial stress. The exercise aims to test the crisis management of the firms during adverse conditions. The war game test will be organized by Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority, collectively known as tripartite authorities. The exercise will also test the communication between the tripartite authorities. While ...
... the authorities don't expect any adverse scenario during the games, the tests aim to check the preparedness of the firms.

Threats in the cyber space are vibrant. Criminals may send fake e-mails with news on sport events and entice users to click on a malicious link. They may also place malicious ad links on vulnerable websites luring users with exciting offers during the Olympic Games. The links may either download malware into the computer systems of the user or direct a user to a seemingly genuine but fake website. Once a user enters the details on the fake website, the criminals extract the confidential information and defraud the user. An informed user may reduce the instances of data and security breach. As such, government and organizing bodies must create information security awareness among the public through online video clips and e-learning programs.

The exercises are organized periodically to test the preparedness of the financial systems to face different types of threats. The previous exercise was based on widespread flooding and heavy snowfall in United Kingdom (U.K)

Organizing committees of the gigantic sports event must conduct regular pen testing of the websites to weed out the potential threat vectors. Other stakeholders and business participants must also conduct regular security evaluation of the IT infrastructure to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities. IT professionals may be encouraged to undertake vulnerability assessment training to update their skills and ensure early identification and mitigation of threats. Organizations must have customized business continuity and disaster management plans in place to deal with different exigencies.