Hong Kong Financial Services
Business Continuity Management Forum
Postal Address
HKFSBCM
Unit 2302, Level 23, New World Tower 1
Queen's Road Central
Hong Kong
Whole Industry Simulation Exercise (WISE) 2023 Journey
The exercise objectives of WISE 2023 included practicing the crisis management capabilities of senior managers when BCP is invoked and assessing the ability of the Crisis Management Team (CMT) to respond to a cyber-attack incident that impacts multiple firms across Hong Kong. A new and significant addition was that WISE was the first BCM industry exercise in the world that integrated Operational Resilience requirements into the traditional framework of a crisis management exercise.
WISE 2023 was successfully conducted on Thursday, 16 Nov 2023. The exercise was delivered both in person and online:
- the command center included ~50 scenario leads and vendor staff to manage the injects
- a video conference was available for overseas participants with a role in the exercise
- each firm’s crisis management team operated within their own established internal crisis response structures
The baseline scenario revolved around malware distributed by a hostile threat actor through a key software patch. Optional injects included slowness to a key financial market data provider, and intelligence/complaints published on social media platforms. To incorporate Operational Resilience testing requirements, firms were allowed to stretch their own suite of internal injects to prioritise their Critical Business Services. Injects were input into 4C Strategies’ Exonaut system, where the vendor could sense-check and validate the range of injects across the Hong Kong market to ensure no one firms injects derailed the exercise.
Overall, an estimated 900-1,000 people joined and supported WISE 2023 whether they were regulators (HKMA and SFC), BCM teams (single points of contact, facilitators, scenario leads and evaluators), Operational Resilience leads or CMTs (senior decision-makers within banks).
As part our partnership with 4C Strategies, a Crisis Management Capability Maturity Model (CMCMM) was developed which defines what “good” looks like for Hong Kong’s financial sector when responding to a disruption. It is based on 4C Strategies’ methodology of the 10 fundamentals of Crisis Management in close partnership and collaboration with organisations and sectors across the world as well as in line with international standards, guidelines, and best practice. Behind each function there is a set of performance indicators, i.e., the definition of what “good” looks like for that function, which has been developed as part of the WISE 2023 project to allow organisations to benchmark themselves against the industry.
WISE 2023 Documentary
(click to play the video)
WISE 2023 Report
(click on image to download)
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