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September 12, 2006 Remarks of D. Scott Parsons, NEW YORK CITY, Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Each of you has made a difference. I commend you for your knowledge, your tenacity, and your team work, and your hard work to improve the security of the American financial services sector. These efforts have involved the strengthening of public-private partnerships, and together we have made great strides since 9-11 towards improving the security and resilience of the financial services sector in this country. The President has taken historic actions to protect Since September 11th, President Bush has restructured and reformed the Federal government to focus resources on counterterrorism and to ensure the security of our homeland. Along with creating the Department of Homeland Security, the President established the Homeland Security Council, which is charged with ensuring the coordination of al homeland security-related activities among Executive departments and agencies. The Homeland Security Advisory Council, which includes private sector leaders and their state and local counterparts, was also established to provide recommendations on ways to improve coordination, cooperation, and communication among federal, state and local officials and the private sector. As the lead sector specific agency for the financial services sector, the Treasury works closely with the Department of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council, as well as with the other financial regulators and the private sector to address areas of concern to the industry. Developing and sharing accurate and timely information about threats is critically important. Three organizations essential to these information sharing efforts are the Financial and Banking Information Infrastructure Committee (FBIIC), the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security (FSSCC), and the Financial Services Information Sharing and The FBIIC, a standing committee of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, is charged with coordinating federal and state financial regulatory efforts to improve the resilience of the The FSSCC acts as the private sector group coordinating private sector thinking and actions regarding critical infrastructure resilience. Among its many accomplishments, the FSSCC assists the sector with planning and procedures during crises, testing and simulation exercises, and has coordinated back-up capabilities between the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ Stock Market, allowing each institution to back the other up in case of failure. The FBIIC and the FSSCC work closely together on a number of key initiatives including conducting outreach meetings such as this one throughout our nation. Additionally, these organizations work together to consider emerging threats and identify preventive measures. Understanding that financial institutions need to work closely with local and state officials, we have worked to organize and establish regional coalitions. Two examples of these regional coalitions are FloridaFirst and ChicagoFirst. Through these coalitions, we have seen great progress in coordination and planning on a local and regional basis. They also provide us a single point of contact to give the most up-to-date information directly to institutions during crises. For example, during events such as hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and most recently tropical storm Ernesto, we remained in constant contact with FloridaFirst, sharing the latest projections, assessing the condition of the sector, and standing ready to offer resources where needed. Along with the FBIIC and FSSCC, the FS-ISAC plays a critical role in informing the financial services sector during crises. It is the primary communications mechanism we use to share threat information, and to communicate with the sector during crisis. It currently serves over 8,000 firms nationwide. We have made many improvements in the resiliency of the financial sector, including:
The private sector has made substantial investments to improve its resilience. We have much better geographic diversity with the location of backup operating sites now many hundreds of miles away from the primary operating facility. This enables financial institutions to switch their information technology operations to backup facilities very quickly, which preserves the integrity of data and allows for continuation of orderly transaction processing. This also provides better redundancy for key dependencies, such as telecommunications and electricity. Additionally, regular testing of systems and plans, combined with cross-training of key employees, helps to ensure continuity of operations. As recent history demonstrates, our efforts to make financial institutions resilient against terrorism helps to improve our sector's stance against all hazards, be they intentional or unintentional, man made or natural. These collective efforts take us far towards ensuring the confidence in the availability of our markets and the strength of our economy remains warranted. Moreover, the resolve and spirit of the employees that work for our institutions is why we are accomplishing our goals. That said, there are still great threats looming. Looking forward, we must consider the threat of a possible pandemic influenza epidemic as part of our business continuity and risk management planning. The FBIIC and the FSSCC have formed working groups to focus on the potential impact that a pandemic flu may have on the financial services sector. Working together we will meet this challenge as we will continue to fight the war on terrorism. As we saw on the fateful morning of We are not alone as targets of this evil. As we've seen throughout the world in places such as Five years after 9-11, we remain vigilant and we remain committed to fighting terrorism. In the words of Winston Churchill "One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half."
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