In what was dubbed her "frankest assessment yet" of the cyber security risk, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White said that serious vulnerabilities have not been properly addressed in the national and global exchanges used to power the global financial system, and cyber attacks were the top threat facing it.
"What we found, as a general matter so far, is a lot of preparedness, a lot of awareness but also their policies and procedures are not tailored to their particular risks," she said at the Reuters Financial Regulation Summit.
She said that the SEC has become more proactive about reaching out and assessing the cybercurity of brokers and investment advisors.
Her remarks come shortly after a Bangladeshi bank was robbed of $81 million, reportedly due to a vulnerability in the SWIFT system used by banks to communicate large transactions.
