“Outside of the conflict zone, we are not seeing any significant uptick in attacks attributable to any specific geography or threat actor,” said Steve Silberstein, the chief executive of the non-profit Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or FS-ISAC, in testimony before a meeting of the House Homeland Security Committee.

FS-ISAC acts as an intermediary between global financial institutions to share information on cyber threats and counts nearly 5,000 member firms in around 70 countries.

Mr. Silberstein said that FS-ISAC’s threat level, determined by its members, is now at “elevated,” meaning that banks and other financial firms are taking extra security measures due to the geopolitical climate. However, this is only the second of four levels of severity, he said.

“Over the last 100 days, the financial sector has taken various precautionary steps to not only ensure our individual organizations, but also the sector as a whole, is as prepared as it can be at this point,” Mr. Silberstein said.

Federal agencies such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have warned in recent weeks that tough sanctions imposed on Russia could prompt a spate of cyberattacks against critical infrastructure such as banks. CISA held a call with over 13,000 critical infrastructure operators on Mar. 22, in which it urged companies to update their cyber defenses.

The day before, President Biden warned that “evolving intelligence” indicated the Russian government is exploring options for cyberattacks. Moscow has consistently denied planning or launching cyberattacks.

By James Rundle