BANGKOK — Finance leaders from the Group of Seven have agreed to develop tabletop exercises testing their response to artificial-intelligence-enabled cyberattacks on the financial system.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama announced the agreement after a meeting of G7 finance officials in Bangkok. Reuters reported that financial authorities from the seven countries will create simulations and that commercial banks could participate.

Exercises will test cross-border coordination

The initiative is intended to test how governments, central banks, regulators and financial institutions would coordinate during an AI-driven cyber incident. The announcement did not provide dates, scenarios or a list of participating private institutions.

The work builds on an existing G7 program. The Bank of Canada said the G7 Cyber Expert Group completed a cross-border coordination exercise on May 18 that simulated a large-scale cyberattack affecting all seven jurisdictions. That earlier exercise examined communication, decision-making and public-private coordination.

Canada is part of the G7 cyber framework

Canada belongs to both the G7 and its financial-sector Cyber Expert Group. A May communiqué said the group was mapping cybersecurity risks and opportunities associated with artificial intelligence, sharing information and identifying practices for frontier-AI threats.

The new exercises matter to Canadians because a serious incident affecting banks, payment systems or technology suppliers could cross borders quickly. The agreement is a preparedness measure; officials did not report that an AI-enabled attack was underway.

Regulators are examining recovery plans

Financial regulators have increasingly focused on the possibility that AI could make attacks faster or more sophisticated. The Bank of England said this week it was working with banks on recovery options for severe breaches, while the International Monetary Fund has warned that an attack on a critical financial service could undermine confidence.

Details of the G7 simulations are expected to be developed by the participating authorities. Until those plans are published, their scope and timetable remain open.

Sources

Lead image: AI-generated editorial illustration created for The Northern Current; it is not a photograph of a G7 meeting or an actual cyberattack.