Kazakhstan plans to hold full-scale cyber drills in 2027 involving the country's largest banks. The regulator intends to test their ability to withstand cyberattacks, infohub.kz reports.
The plans were announced by Timur Abilkasymov, deputy chairman of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM), at KazHackStan 2026.
"As part of the digital strategy and the widespread adoption of AI in the financial market, we have a supervisory assessment. First, it is corporate governance. This is an assessment of banks' resources, their teams, their staffing levels and how their processes are structured. Second, it is full-scale cyber drills. Next year, as a supervisory exercise, full-scale cyber drills are planned, in which the largest banks will take part, accounting for about 90% of the banking sector's assets," the ARDFM deputy chairman said.
According to Abilkasymov, as part of the pilot phase, the agency has already tested not only banks' readiness to withstand cyberattacks but also their ability to quickly restore their systems if such attacks succeed.
Going forward, such drills will become a tool for assessing banks' cyber resilience.