TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, August 25. The Central Bank of Uzbekistan plans to introduce a new system for assessing the cybersecurity maturity and cyber risks of financial institutions next year, Trend’s special correspondent reports from Tashkent.
Mirzabek Bobojanov, Head of Unit at CERT-CBU, the Cybersecurity Center of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, made the announcement while speaking at the Silk Road Finance & Technology Forum.
According to Bobojanov, the new system will differ from existing regulatory requirements and allow the Central Bank to assess financial institutions based on their individual levels of cyber risk and maturity. “We have developed a new cybersecurity framework. We will launch and implement it next year. It will be totally different from the regulatory requirements,” Bobojanov said.
He noted that the new framework will include four levels of cybersecurity maturity. “A significant bank should follow the hardest rules. A bank that doesn’t have so many clients and is not so digitalized will follow the lowest requirements that we will have,” he explained.
According to Bobojanov, the approach will allow the regulator to focus its resources on institutions facing higher cybersecurity and fraud risks. “We cannot cover all institutions. We cannot go and audit everyone. That’s why our vision will be more focused on the risk level and maturity level,” he said.
He added that the regulator will first collect relevant information from financial institutions, including documents and details of their cybersecurity systems and processes.
"Organizations with lower assessment scores will then become a priority for Central Bank audits," Bobojanov said.
