The financial system, given its centrality to day-to-day economic transactions, is an attractive target for adversarial action. Like hybrid threats in general, hybrid threats emerging in the financial domain are always aimed at exerting a strategic impact. The importance of the financial system as a link between different sectors in society makes it an enabler of hybrid threats, which potentionally can have cascading effects on non-economic domains of the target country/region.
Due to the financial, monetary, and single market interdependencies undermining the financial systems credibility, or otherwise disrupting its operations, can create havoc in an EU member state and in the EU generally. This Hybrid CoE Working Paper bases on the main findings from the workshop “Hybrid threats in the financial system” organised by Hybrid CoE CoI Vulnerabilities and Resilience (CoI VR) in close cooperation with Bruegel, an European think tank that specializes in economics. The workshop examined hybrid threats in the context of the financial system by assessing vulnerabilities and solutions for effective protective measures and improved resilience. This working paper aims to shed light on how the financial system can be used as an enabler or target of disturbance.
