Considering these statistics, it is clear how crucial cybersecurity is for the financial sector.
- Ransomware attacks in the banking industry increased by 1318% year-over-year in the first half of 2021. (Trend Micro)
- Finance ranked third among industries’ most susceptible to DDoS attacks between 2020 and 2021. (UpGuard)
- The average cost of a data breach tops $5 million within the financial services sector, surpassing the average cost of $3.86 million across all industries. (CSOonline)
Financial services are a prime target for cybercriminals because they have money and data that can be sold and vulnerabilities that make the data relatively easy to access. While they are not less diligent with security measures, they are disproportionately targeted by cybercriminals, and as a result, they experience a higher percentage of successful attacks.
The main risk factors
As systems become increasingly complex, financial services are becoming smoother and frictionless, satisfying the need for easier and faster transactions but also increasing the risk of fraud and security gaps.
The probability of occurrence and severity of cyberattacks in the finance sector makes them potentially more devastating than those in other sectors. Due to the centrality of data security and its role in the global economy, a security threat or event can disrupt the day-to-day operations of an entire country or region.
Due to the highly lucrative nature of the financial sector and the legacy infrastructure, attackers are further motivated to hack into it. A small amount of money is easy to steal once inside a bank’s network, while a large amount requires minimal extra effort. In addition, insiders can be persuaded to provide sensitive information to outsiders in exchange for a piece of the pie – an estimated $2 trillion laundered each year.
The biggest threats
Phishing
Social engineering incidents in the finance industry are higher than in most other sectors, especially phishing.
In the first half of 2021, phishing attacks in the financial sector rose by 22% compared to 2020. For the same period, financial app attacks increased by 38%.
DDoS Attacks
An attack that causes a server to go offline is called Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). It involves sending large amounts of fake connection requests to the server. They’re popular in the financial sector because they can simultaneously affect a wide range of platforms, such as customer accounts, payments, and IT infrastructure. The number of multi-vector DDoS attacks has increased by 80% since 2021. (Upguard)
Supply chain attacks
The European Union Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA) predicted a four-fold increase in supply chain attacks for 2021. This highlights the lack of cyber resilience among vendors and the urgent need for a third-party risk management program to remedy this.
Artificial Intelligence
As artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in the financial sector to combat cybersecurity threats, cybercriminals utilize AI to further their own objectives. Attackers can use AI to analyze human behavior to exploit patterns to convince people to compromise networks and share sensitive financial information.
A robust cybersecurity posture saves you money
- There is always a return on investment when it comes to cybersecurity. If you invest upfront in teams, services and providers, you will inevitably prevent exponentially increasing costs and reputational damage after an attack. As such, cybersecurity risk management must be prioritized continuously.
- A robust cybersecurity posture also means fewer surprises and fewer reactive actions in response to unforeseen emergencies. In the aftermath, costs are often much higher (because of their unpredictability), and resources are stretched, not being used most effectively (because of the scramble to remediate).
- To ensure cybersecurity is effective, having a system in place that delivers actionable data with fewer false positives is the best way to ensure resources are being used cost-effectively. This means the continuous review of what is actually happening and, therefore, what is really needed.
- To save on costs and reduce the need for ongoing training, scheduling, and manpower, it is best to implement one solution that combines several services.
Saving time and money by working smart and efficiently means resources are much more focused and applied to the most critical areas.
How ENHALO can help your defense
- ENHALO’s fully managed Security Operation Center (SOC) provides proactive monitoring of external and internal threats, fast response to incidents, digital and physical assets protection, and helps companies meet sector-specific security regulations. Our intelligence-driven SOS boosts revenue by building stakeholder trust, maintaining reputations, and retaining customers.
- We prioritize the 1% vulnerabilities that protect the 99% of exploitable endpoints through Endpoint Detection and Response. Therefore, the right amount of energy is focused on those areas that need protection the most.
- Financial institutions face a significant challenge due to the epidemic level of ransomware attacks, which, in turn, causes IT teams to struggle to stay ahead of zero-day attacks. This can be addressed with our Agentless Network Segmentation Service. By segmenting individual devices, defense readiness protection conditions are created that mitigate breaches instantly.
- Zero-trust authentication never requires a password, so there are no credentials to phish, intercept, or steal. Our fully passwordless multi-factor authentication service will keep your attackers at bay.
We not only assist the financial services sector in reducing internal and third-party risk, but we also ensure that they are prepared for their next cyberattack.
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