SIFMA’s Quantum Dawn VIII Exercise Tests Readiness for Polycrisis Incidents
New York, NY, March 30, 2026 – SIFMA today released the after-action report from its biennial Quantum Dawn VIII resilience exercise conducted in November 2025. The exercise simulated multiple distinct events which simultaneously impacted the sector, including a Category 5 hurricane, a transatlantic cable cut, a Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI) outage, and a zero-day cybersecurity attack attributed to a state actor. The overlapping nature of these events created a complex environment where resources were stretched thin and information sharing and decision-making was critical for maintaining operational integrity.
SIFMA’s Quantum Dawn VIII exercise engaged nearly 1,000 participants from more than 100 public and private sector institutions around the globe, including financial firms, regulatory bodies, central banks, law enforcement, government agencies, trade associations, and information-sharing organizations.
“Overall, the global Quantum Dawn VIII exercise demonstrated the sector’s confidence in its ability to respond to disruption,” said Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr., SIFMA president and CEO. “A clear takeaway from the exercise is the importance of a robust partnership between the industry and government grounded in information sharing. No single actor – not the government, nor any individual firm – has the resources to protect markets from the full spectrum of threats on their own, nor do incidents necessarily restrict themselves to one geographic region. SIFMA and its member firms are deeply committed to regularly testing and enhancing the financial services sector’s resiliency and working with government partners to protect the broader economy going forward.”
Along with SIFMA, global consulting firm Protiviti developed and oversaw the simulation. Following the exercise, SIFMA and Protiviti concluded that the industry has embraced polycrisis planning and the public-private collaboration imperative. The sector shows healthy self-confidence in response capability, with the exercise helping to identify steps the sector could take to strengthen its resilience even further, including:
- Developing a successor to the Corporate Emergency Access System (CEAS) program, with robust verification and integration into emergency response protocols, to improve coordination during physical disruptions.
- Expanding the use of AI for threat detection and continuity planning, alongside promoting employee personal preparedness and geographic dispersion, to further enhance resilience.
- Integrating infrastructure status, FMI posture, anonymized firm signals, and coordinated communications, to help establish a joint operating picture that reduces response variance and accelerates consensus on the ground without diminishing firm autonomy.
- Participating in more regular, realistic exercises to help close the gap between planning and execution.
Looking at the next steps, SIFMA will work to support members in these areas by:
- Supporting efforts to better understand telecommunications, cloud, and other third-party and fourth-party interdependencies.
- Socializing and encouraging adoption of reconnection protocols.
- Facilitating good AI governance practices for financial institutions.
- Exploring post-CEAS credentialing options.
- Building and maintaining a global directory and/or emergency notification capability.
- Sponsoring exercises.
The full report is available at the following link: https://www.sifma.org/resources/readiness-exercises/cybersecurity-exercise-quantum-dawn-viii
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SIFMA is the leading trade association for broker-dealers, investment banks and asset managers operating in the U.S. and global capital markets. On behalf of our industry’s one million employees, we advocate on legislation, regulation and business policy affecting retail and institutional investors, equity and fixed income markets and related products and services. We serve as an industry coordinating body to promote fair and orderly markets, informed regulatory compliance, and efficient market operations and resiliency. We also provide a forum for industry policy and professional development. SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., is the U.S. regional member of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA).