Wall Street Prepping for 'Quantum Dawn 2' Cyber Drill June 28

Is Wall Street prepared for a full-scale cyber attack? Dozens of top firms are about to find out, as the financial services industry preps for Quantum Dawn 2, a real-time cyber drill set for June 28.

The effort, organized by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), will bring together about 50 entities across the industry – from major banks to government agencies – to see just how well the industry might handle a rapid fire cyber blitz, Karl Schimmeck, vice president of financial services operations at SIFMA, told PCMag.

At 9 a.m. Eastern next Friday, participants will log on, from their offices, to a closed system developed by the Department of Homeland Security. No one knows exactly what kind of attack will hit, but once it does, they will have to coordinate with corporate and government partners to battle their virtual foes.

Schimmeck said Quantum Dawn 2 is an exercise rather than a test, and there won’t be any winners or losers, per se. When the drill concludes around 2:30 p.m. that day, organizers hope to identify things that can be improved upon, and how to carry that out. Are the firms sharing information with one another? Is there an easier way to do something?

Schimmeck stressed that “what makes cyber so unique is that you have a living, breathing adversary on the other side.” You can’t anticipate something as you might with storm preparedness, for example, he said.

The last major drill, Quantum Dawn 1, was conducted in Nov. 2011 and that combined a small cyber attack with an attempted physical invasion of Wall Street exchanges.

As noted by Reuters, which first reported the story, various bank executives have received security clearances in recent months so that the FBI can inform them of cyber attacks on their systems.

The issue of information sharing between the public and private sector made headlines earlier this year when Congress considered CISPA, a bill that would allow the government and private companies to communicate about cyber-related attacks on their systems. Concern about immunity, privacy, and how data might be handled, however, has stalled action on the bill.

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