Cybercrime Costing Banks & Other Financial Institutions Dearly

access_time January 6, 2019
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We are currently witnessing a trend whereby banks and financial institutions are increasingly being attacked by cyber criminals, resulting in both the loss of precious data as also the causing of irreversible damage to brands and market reputations. This poses serious implications for all affected organizations; but nowhere will this have greater impact than in the financial sector including banks. It seems not a day passes without an organization somewhere suffering a security breach or customers in banks having money stolen from their accounts. According to global cyber security firm McAfee, cyber crimes are costing businesses close to $ 600 billion globally or 0. 8% of the global GDP presently, a steep increase from $ 445 billion three years back. Banks continue to be the most lucrative target as they are the ones storing more cash. In the case of Tesco bank, hackers stole over 2 million pounds from customer accounts with banks like HSBC also reporting attacks on their customers’ accounts in the United Kingdom. However, banks and financial institutions make prudent and sophisticated technology investments that help reduce the cost of breaches significantly. Most financial firms use automation, artificial intelligence and machine – learning technologies as a bulwark against cyber attacks and as part of their cyber defense technologies in their day-to-day operations. Major threat issues confronting banks As banks and financial institutions constantly make use of social media networks and other platforms to expand their reach among customers, there also exists the possibility that such interaction could lead to security breaches. Hackers could leverage information from social media sites to socially engineer their way in to accounts via customer service. Criminals can also send phishing emails or set up fake websites that dupe consumers in to giving away sensitive financial data. While banks and financial companies face serious external threats from hackers and other cyber criminals, threats emerging from its internal system are also a cause for concern. This could arise due to carelessness on the part of one single employee who has legitimate access to its sensitive data and IT systems. Such threats are harder to detect and pose greater dangers than can be imagined as sensitive data remains openly exposed to hackers and cyber criminals. Secure banking and financial transactions is then what is needed. Though banks and other financial institutions face continued cyber attacks, banks and other financial institutions are generally the most secure and protected institutions. The popular perception is also similar and that is mostly the reason why citizens entrust their hard earned income with these institutions. The implementation of online banking and mobile banking has opened fresh security challenges. Hackers and cyber criminals are using superior techniques to access financial data and banks must use effective technologies to thwart such attempts. The onus is on banks and other financial institutions to take adequate precautions to ensure that consumer data is protected and that hackers and cyber criminals do not walk away with the hard -earned income of consumers. Methods financial institutions likely to employ to combat cyber crime It is likely that going forward, banks and other financial institutions will make greater use of automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to combat potential data breaches and cyber attacks. Currently, only 26% of financial services companies have actually deployed AI security technologies, and approximately 31% use advanced analytics to fight cyber crime. Banks and financial institutions will need to employ more unique layers of defense technologies to protect information they consider sensitive from attacks that are engineered by hackers and cyber criminals.

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