Moody’s to establish standard for quantifying cyber risk

Moody’s Corp. is working to establish a global standard for quantifying and assessing cyber risk for financial institutions.

Through a joint venture with think-tank Team8, Moody’s will develop technology tools and methods to measure and analyze cyber risks facing lenders. Derek Vadala, global head of cyber risk for Moody’s, was named chief executive of the joint venture last month.

The venture aims to provide financial institutions with an objective cyber risk assessment to better understand their own cyber risk exposure and how it benchmarks against others and over time, Moody’s noted. The cyber risk service will also assess cyber risk exposure for companies in M&A transactions.

For lenders, understanding the threat landscape for their organization is one of the first steps in battling cyber risk, Hyundai Capital America‘s Chief Information Security Officer Eddie Younker told Auto Finance News.

“Work with your CISO to figure out how you measure up next to [cyber risk] concerns,” Younker said. “What is your risk exposure?”

Protecting against cyber risks is a clear concern for lenders. Chief executives from Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and State Street admitted to the House Financial Services Committee earlier this year that cybersecurity is a key risk factor for them.