Our view on APRA’s new cyber security regulation

     For those of you who don’t work in financial services and may not know the structure associated with APRA’s publications, there are Prudential Practice Guides (PPGs) and Prudential Standards (APSs or CPSs). A PPG provides guidance on what APRA considers to be sound practice in particular areas. PPGs discuss legal requirements but are not themselves legal requirements. Simply put, this is APRA telling you what you should be doing without making it enforceable. On the other hand, APSs and CPSs are regulatory instruments and are therefore enforceable. Until now, those working within a cyber security team at an Australian financial services company had PPG 234 – Management of security risk in information and information technology (released in 1 February 2010) as their only reference point as to what APRA were expecting from them in regard to their cyber security controls. But things have moved on a fair bit since 2010. […]