Resilience through joint action: financial institutions practise response to a systemic cyber attack

On 3 March 2026, the Swiss Financial Sector Cyber Security Centre (Swiss FS-CSC) conducted a strategic cyber exercise for its members in Zurich. Attended by just under 140 participants from the top management of Swiss and Liechtenstein financial institutions, it underscores the importance of cyber exercises to prepare for systemic attacks, along with the importance of cyber resilience to strengthen the reputation of the Swiss financial centre.

As well as impacting individual financial institutions, a systemic cyber attack has the potential to harm the financial centre as a whole and, with it, the nation’s economy. For this reason, Swiss and Liechtenstein financial institutions and the authorities are working proactively, within the Swiss FS-CSC, to improve the sector’s cyber resilience.

Cyber resilience requires strategic decisions

One of the Swiss FS-CSC’s central tasks and most important services to boost cyber resilience is organising and conducting scenario-based cyber exercises for its members. While operational cyber exercises focus on financial institutions’ cyber experts, the strategic exercise is designed to test top-level leadership. It is thus aimed at senior executives and the board of directors, heads of crisis organisations and experts in risk management, resilience and crisis management.

Alexandra Arni, Executive Officer of the Swiss FS-CSC, emphasises: “Cyber resilience requires decision-making at the strategic level. It is therefore vital for management, which is not normally made up of cyber experts, to be aware of the risks of systemic cyber attacks, promote collaboration with the authorities and Swiss FS-CSC bodies, and identify central challenges and action areas in order to strengthen its institution’s organisational resilience.” Management, she adds, must ensure that appropriate preparations are made and that it is itself capable of taking on its assigned role in a crisis.

Simulating a complex cyber attack

Specifically, the strategic cyber exercise simulated a complex attack situation involving a data leak, (real-time) phishing, fraudulent banking transactions, blackmail and the failure of IT infrastructure. This enabled participants, working with other institutions, to realistically role-play the procedures, interfaces, responsibilities and decisions in a crisis. “Conducting risk- and scenario-based cyber exercises is vital to enhancing cyber resilience, and is a regulatory obligation for banks and other financial institutions. The fact that FINMA recognises participation in our strategic cyber exercise as meeting that obligation for financial institutions in supervisory categories 4 and 5 under FINMA Guidance 03/2024 adds value for our members in those categories”, explains Alexandra Arni.

About Swiss FS-CSC

Constituted as an association, the Swiss FS-CSC is a public-private partnership. Its aim is to improve the financial sector’s resilience to cyber risks, and to foster a partnership between financial institutions and the authorities on strategic and operational issues. The Swiss FS-CSC was founded on 5 April 2022 in Zurich and now has almost 180 members, among them banks, insurers and reinsurers, financial service providers, the Swiss National Bank (SNB), SIX, securities firms and industry associations. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF) support the association as affiliates and are represented in its key governing bodies.