
Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury Committee, was scathing in his assessment of cyber security in banking.
In total around 40,000 accounts saw suspicious activity over the course of the weekend.
An influential Tory MP has labelled a recent cyber bank attack “the latest in a long list of failures”.
Tesco Bank has admitted “relatively small” amounts were taken from almost 20,000 accounts over the weekend and blamed a “systematic, sophisticated attack”.
However, chairman of the Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie, criticised the industry for not doing enough to safeguard customers from this type of risk.
He said: “This is just the latest in a long list of failures and breaches of banking IT systems, exposing many thousands of customers to uncertainty and disruption.
“At the beginning of the year, I wrote to the regulators urging them to take action to ensure that banks improve the resilience and security of their systems and their IT expertise.
“Millions of customers remain unnecessarily exposed to the risks of IT failures, including delays in paying bills and an inability to access their own money.
“Making sure that banks improve their IT systems, and their resilience to cybercrime, is also a responsibility of regulators.
“We will raise this issue with them again shortly. We can’t carry on like this.”
Mr Tyrie says he will be writing to Benny Higgins, Tesco Bank’s chief executive, “to find out what went wrong, and what actions are being taken to reduce the likelihood of it happening again”.
Yesterday Mr Higgins said the bank knew “exactly” what the attack was but could not elaborate as it was now part of a criminal investigation.
He said: “We are working hard to resume normal service on current accounts as soon as possible.” He apologised for the “worry and inconvenience” customers encountered.
The National Crime Agency is leading the investigation into the incident.
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