The 2014 hacks of Sony Pictures sent shockwaves through executive suites in every industry, but for many in the financial services industry, it was especially sobering. Pooling their resources, the industry responded with an initiative designed to step up the financial sector’s cyber resiliency.

“Thinking about what you’d do, as a financial services organization, if you went in and half your server infrastructure was wiped; your backups corrupted. And as a consumer, what happens if your bank account suddenly had a zero balance? Oh, my God — the impact on customers, on the financial institution itself, as well as the public confidence in your institution and the financial services sector in general would be awful,” says Trey Maust, Sheltered Harbor CEO.

The financial services industry regularly conducts Financial Services – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) Hamilton Series exercises, which simulate various plausible cybersecurity incidents or attacks to better prepare the industry to respond to cyberattacks. The Sheltered Harbor Specification, designed to enhance resiliency and protect financial institutions’ customer accounts and data in the event of a breach or an attack, emerged from these Hamilton Exercises, and was outlined in a white paper. Financial institutions, industry trade groups and leaders, brokerages, and core processing providers formed the non-profit Sheltered Harbor organization in 2015 to support the initiative.

The mission was to create a standardized, secure, encrypted data vaulting solution, recovery standards, and a stringent adherence framework in addition to financial services companies’ existing business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) solutions. The organization has since built a collaborative industry platform, which has received a CIO100 award in IT excellence.