Brazil’s central bank vows tougher rules after surge in financial system cyberattacks

By Marcela Ayres

(Reuters) -Brazil’s central bank is preparing to advance tighter ​regulation of the financial system to curb a ‌rise in cyberattacks, the bank’s supervision director, Ailton Aquino,‌ said on Wednesday.

This year, 68 incidents have been reported through October, including 37 cases of fraud, he said at a press conference in Sao ⁠Paulo.

That represents the highest ‌number since the central bank began tracking such data in 2018 and is already ‍above the 59 cases recorded in all of last year, according to the bank’s Financial Stability Report released earlier ​in the day.

Aquino cited the need for stronger oversight ‌of third-party services and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which act as bridges allowing different software systems to communicate securely and automatically with each other.

He said the central bank was finalizing rules for direct ⁠connections to the financial system’​s network and expected to release ​them soon.

“The agenda remains strong,” Aquino said.

In September, the central bank issued ‍new rules ⁠to strengthen the security of the country’s financial system, and earlier this week it regulated ⁠the crypto assets market to help prevent money laundering and fraud.

‌(Reporting by Marcela Ayres; Editing by ‌Alex Richardson and Nick Zieminski)