TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s financial regulator said Monday (Nov. 14) it has taken a five-pronged approach to beefing up cybersecurity for the country’s financial sector.

The measures have been adopted to reduce vulnerabilities to the financial industry, including drills against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, said Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairperson Huang Tien-mu (黃天牧) at a legislative briefing.

Banks are required to conduct vulnerability scanning for ATM systems every six months. Information security tests are also mandated for mobile applications rolled out by financial institutions and the tests should be carried out by professional organizations, Liberty Times quoted Huang as saying.

Systems that can affect automated customer services and operations must undergo penetration testing every year, he said. Also, the FSC will hold regular exercises for institutions to boost their preparedness against cyberattacks.

A survey by the Prudential Assurance Company last month found that up to 87% of Taiwanese use digital tools for finance management. Among the respondents, 40% said data security was a concern.