Financial services such as banks, credit card companies, and insurance providers are trusted with an abundance of sensitive data, including customer’s Social Security numbers, banking details, and personal information. As a result, banking and financial institutes are 300 times more at risk of cyberattack than other companies. Data Breaches targeting financial services can quickly spread through entire systems, impacting not only individuals and their confidence in organizations, but also companies, investors, and the economy as a whole.
Decentralized & Digitized
Financial services are now also highly dependent on computer systems, internet banking, and mobile apps. A study in 2019 discovered 91% of mobile banking apps were found to contain at least one medium-risk security vulnerability. And with the COVID-19 pandemic acting as a catalyst for organizations to onboard their business digitally, attack vectors and new vulnerabilities were introduced and increased. Financial services’ infrastructure also often rests on multiple, decentralized systems, making it a lucrative target for cybercriminals, with the remote working boom exacerbating the decentralization of networks.
A rise in social engineering
In 2020, no other sector had as many DDoS attacks as financial services, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic driving an increase in online transactions. Now a huge 28.9% of global phishing targets financial institutions and their customers.
Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are another serious threat, often targeting banking systems and financial firms due to the sensitive nature of their data. APTs are typically carried out by stealthy threat actors looking to gain access to applications and steal financial data. In 2014, Carbanak, an APT-style campaign, was discovered to have stolen between $800 million and $1 billion from banks around the world.
As in any industry, financial organizations are also struggling to find and recruit the professionals they need to improve their resilience in the face of social engineering attacks. 81% of the financial services sector report a shortage of cybersecurity skills in their organizations, and 74% believe that the talent shortfall makes organizations more vulnerable to attackers.
Staying ahead with threat intelligence
Organizations in the financial services industry need to utilize automated, proactive cybersecurity solutions that combat the shortage of cybersecurity professionals and ease the burden on existing staff. They also require a cybersecurity strategy that offers threat visibility across decentralized, distributed systems so that they can quickly detect and prevent attacks and protect their customers, their data, their networks, and their reputation.
Centripetal’s CleanINTERNET service, provides dynamic, proactive threat intelligence that increases cybersecurity posture while alleviating the burden of the skills gap. CleanINTERNET aggregates over 3,500 cyber threat feeds for you, performing in-depth threat analysis and shielding on your behalf. Our team of expert cyber threat analysts deliver comprehensive, relevant threat findings to your team directly, giving you visibility of cyber threats across distributed systems and alleviating the threat hunting burden for your security staff. This makes your existing security tools more viable, saving millions of dollars on separate threat feeds and helping to mitigate the risk of non-compliance. CleanINTERNET’s end-to-end network visibility offers financial service providers immeasurable security and control.
