Global watchdog issues blueprint for banks to report cyber attacks

LONDON (Reuters) - The G20's financial watchdog on Thursday recommended a blueprint for banks to report cyberattacks in a common format in a bid to speed up responses to hacking and limit the fallout on financial stability.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB), which comprises central banks, financial regulators and treasury officials from the Group of 20 (G20) major economies, set out the recommendations following a public consultation.

"The interconnectedness of the global financial system makes it possible that a cyber incident at one financial institution (or an incident at one of its third-party service providers) could have spill-over effects across borders and sectors," the FSB said in a statement.

"Over the last decade, however, meaningful differences have and continue to emerge in the requirements and practices associated with cyber incident reporting."

The recommendations seek to remove barriers to greater harmonisation of incident reporting, and include an enhanced "cyber lexicon" to provide a wider range of common terms to increase convergence in reporting.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Mark Potter)