The Bank of Italy, the Italian Banking Association and the ABI Lab Consortium announced the creation of a new cybersecurity response team, with the aim of strengthening security for operators across Italy’s banking and financial sectors, households, businesses and government entities.
Through a joint agreement, a highly specialized Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) will help to prevent and fight threats from the growing digital economy. The new response team, called CERTFin, will collect statistics, information and reports. The team will then analyze all the phenomena linked to cybersecurity, enabling banking and financial operators in Italy to exchange information effectively and, at the same time, offering them a series of tools and services to further strengthen security safeguards.
Starting in January, CERTFin will gradually make a range of services available to the banking and financial communities, with a plan of delivering all services required by the international standards within two years.
In line with the National Strategic Framework for the Security of Cyberspace, CERTFin will also connect all operators in the sector: banks, payment service providers, financial intermediaries, market infrastructures and companies, IT and internet infrastructure providers, insurance firms and other sector authorities to protect critical infrastructures.
“CERTFin’s strategic and managerial decisions will be entrusted to a Strategic Committee chaired by the Bank of Italy and ABI, while its services will be coordinated by an operational unit overseen by ABI Lab and made available to members on a cooperative basis, thanks to the involvement of Italy’s financial operators,” a statement from the ABI confirmed.
