U.S. Financial Institutions Involved with Three Week Bird Flu Pandemic Simulation
September 25th, 2007Liquidity problems? What liquidity problems?
Via: AP:
WASHINGTON Don’t be alarmed if your local bank teller is looking a bit sickly over the next three weeks. It is only a cyber-illness.
Hundreds of banks and other financial institutions are participating in the largest test of its kind ever conducted to ensure the nation’s financial system can keep functioning in case of an outbreak of pandemic flu.
The test began today and is scheduled to run for three weeks. More than 2,700 financial institutions have signed up to participate, about five times the number the Treasury Department expected.
“This shows how much the business sector is focused on pandemic flu planning,†Valerie Abend, Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for critical infrastructure protection, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Treasury, aided by other federal agencies and the private sector, has devised a three-week script for how a serious outbreak of bird flu might affect operations at banks, from the very biggest to the smallest, as well as at credit unions, securities firms and insurance companies.
The exercise also covers companies that provide critical behind-the-scenes processing to keep the flow of checks and money circulating around the country.
According to the doomsday scenario devised by Treasury, a number of cases of bird flu in humans are reported overseas and the illness spreads quickly to the United States by people traveling on international flights.
From that beginning, the Treasury scenario presents financial institutions with a number of challenges over the course of the three-week exercise. The financial institutions got the first week’s scenario during the weekend from an Internet site where the test is being conducted.
The whole exercise is part of a plan unveiled by President Bush in May 2006 directing various government agencies to upgrade their planning for pandemic outbreaks. The Government Accountability Office earlier this month criticized the administration for failing to conduct sufficient tests to make sure that the agencies understand their responsibilities.
Related: The New PSYOP Payload: Bird Flu and the Collapse of the Internet
That’s creepy – transparent and creepy…