G7 finance chiefs agree to launch exercises to tackle AI cyberattack risks

The plan follows an IMF warning that an AI-enabled cyberattack on a critical financial service could undermine confidence, prompting G7 policymakers to coordinate their responses

Finance leaders of the ​G7 grouping agreed to hold tabletop exercises to guard against AI cyber attacks, Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said, as policymakers increasingly seek to coordinate responses to growing cyber security risks. 

The agreement comes after the International Monetary Fund warned this ‌week that confidence could be undermined ​by an AI-enabled cyber attack ​on a critical service of a financial institution. 

"The G7 finance deputies ​had been discussing the idea of doing tabletop exercises on frontier AI, which was signed off at the ministerial level," Katayama told reporters on Thursday. 

She made the remarks after attending a meeting of ​finance ministers and central bank governors of the G7 advanced economies held on ‌the sidelines of the IMF's annual gathering in Bangkok, the Thai ​capital. 

 

The plan will feature simulations developed by G7 finance authorities to test how they can respond to AI-driven cyber attacks, said a Japanese finance ministry ‌official who attended the finance leaders' ​meeting. 

The results will test ‌the effectiveness of existing protocols and be used to revise manuals to ‌better tackle such incidents, the official told reporters. 

The exercises by G7 finance ​ministries and central banks could include private financial institutions depending on the nature of simulations, the official added. 

Banking regulators ​globally are stepping up efforts to contain growing AI risks, Reuters reported, with some pointing to the potential for ‌cyberattacks on banks or rogue agents undermining global financial stability. 

Among them is ‌the Bank of England, which is working with banks on deep cyber-recovery options, its deputy governor said on Thursday, adding that they can no longer assume their defences are immune to AI-enabled cyberattacks.