Europe’s banks brace for Russia-backed cyber retaliation

Beefed-up sanctions on Russia’s largest banks spark IT security alert; hundreds of computers brought down in Ukraine prior to invasion

European banks are preparing for an escalation of state-sponsored cyber attacks as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unleashed a barrage of sanctions against the country’s largest financial firms.

Senior operational risk sources at a UK bank and a European Union bank tell Risk.net they expect Russia-backed hacking groups to conduct retaliatory cyber attacks on western financial infrastructure as global leaders applied asset freezes to local banking giants including Sberbank and VTB.

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