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This programme has been needed for some time. Vital services already have regular drills against more traditional methods of attack, but with a growing number of cyber attacks on large companies – most recently Sony – the government has recognised the need for far more comprehensive cyber warfare protection. These tests will go beyond the normal scope of internal security testing by using custom malware built specifically to try and bring down a particular service. For example, in 2010 The Stuxnet worm, a custom piece of malware that was designed to target the Iranian Nuclear weapons program was released, the worm reportedly said to have shut down 20 percent of Iran’s nuclear reactors. This programme will finally test how banks fair in protecting vital infrastructure from these more complex attacks that require a high level of skill from the attacker – for example targeted attacks like spear phishing, botnets, DDOS attacks and Advanced Persistent Threats (APT).

With the threat landscape changing on an almost daily basis, attackers are constantly devising new, more complex techniques to bypass security systems. Our testing scenarios and defences need to keep pace.