Taiwan’s FSC accelerates financial cybersecurity measures with new action plan

Some measures include appointing Chief Information Security Officers.

Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) released its new Financial Cybersecurity Action Plan 2.0 which will ensure uninterrupted operations of the country’s financial system, provide the public with a safe trading environment, and strengthen the cyber defence capabilities of financial service firms.

Since its implementation on 6 August 2020, the Financial Security Action Plan improved cybersecurity for Taiwan’s financial institutions through actions such as appointing chief information security officers (CISOs), conducting offensive and defensive exercises, and establishing a financial cybersecurity incident response system.

The Financial Cybersecurity Action Plan 2.0 will not only expand several measures from the existing action plan, such as having more financial institutions appoint their CISOs, adopting international standards in establishing their Security Operations Centres, and improving their cyber intelligence sharing capabilities, but also provide new ones to combat cyber threats, including hackers.

These include having a number of trained cybersecurity specialists, holding training courses aside from continuing simulated offensive and defensive exercises, and establishing zero thrust networks, improved network connection validation, and authorization control.

The FSC will implement the Financial Security Action Plan 2.0 in phases over a period of three years. It will be then reviewed on a quarterly basis to check if it achieved its objectives and adjusted in response to international cybersecurity developments and the state of Taiwan’s business operations.