Financial entities should therefore be encouraged to collectively leverage their individual knowledge and practical experience at strategic, tactical and operational levels to enhance their capabilities to adequately assess, monitor, defend against, and respond to, cyber threats. It is thus necessary to enable the emergence at the Union level of mechanisms for voluntary information-sharing arrangements, which, when conducted in trusted environments, would help the financial community to prevent and collectively respond to threats by quickly limiting the spread of ICT risks and impeding potential contagion throughout the financial industry.
How would your organisation participate in such an important activity?
First, we encourage your organisation to have a formal plan for sharing information according to DORA requirements. Information-sharing arrangements have to (a) protect the potentially sensitive nature of the information, (b) define the conditions for participation, and (c) set out the details on the involvement of public authorities and their capacity.
Next, you have to have resources and capabilities to build up a strong cybersecurity team which will proactively collect, analyse and monitor past, current and potential threats and put in place and continuously improve risk mitigation practices and procedures. Proactively sharing information involves situational awareness and communication across the organisation, with the relevant competent authorities and, in some instances, with the general public.