The Bank of England, which helped oversee a cyber readiness exercise last year for London’s finance sector, now plans to lead a large-scale penetration testing effort, according to reports.

A Monday Financial Times article revealed that the coming cyber threat and vulnerability management exercise will “build on the lessons” of last year’s “Waking Shark II” simulated cyber attacks in the city.

The program would, for the first time, allow authorities to oversee penetration testing and “ethical hacking” efforts, in an attempt to close vulnerabilities affecting UK organizations’ computer systems, FT reported. The paper also revealed that The Royal Bank of Scotland, UK insurers and the London Stock Exchange are likely to participate in the exercise.

While the Bank of England declined to comment on the plans, FT reported that the bank had already conducted a pilot exercise, according to unnamed sources familiar with the initiative.

Via: scmagazine