The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, together with the National Bank of Denmark and key financial-sector participants, has completed a joint stress test of the sector’s ability to handle major cyber-related outages. The exercise used a new collaborative method focused on understanding vulnerabilities and maintaining critical functions when disruptions occur, rather than on preventing outages altogether. It resulted in concrete actions to strengthen the sector’s capacity to respond to and recover from cyberattacks. The test was based on a fictional scenario in which data manipulation created uncertainty over ownership of securities, forcing a temporary halt to settlement of completed trades and to further trading until recovery work was completed. The method combined jointly developed disruption scenarios, tabletop testing and real-time crisis exercises. The exercise confirmed that, given the sector’s interdependencies, no single firm can manage a large-scale outage alone. Participants have therefore started three joint initiatives: a common playbook for outages affecting securities markets, a working group to strengthen external crisis communication, and a broader effort to improve cross-sector preparation for a range of relevant disruption scenarios.
Danish Finanstilsynet2026-07-03
Danish Financial Supervisory Authority and National Bank of Denmark complete joint cyber stress test and launch three recovery initiatives
The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, the National Bank of Denmark and sector participants completed a joint cyber stress test using a new collaborative method. A simulated data-manipulation incident that disrupted securities ownership records, settlement and trading showed that major outages cannot be managed by individual firms alone. The exercise led to three joint initiatives covering a securities-outage playbook, crisis communication and broader cross-sector preparedness.