Cybercrime has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of all industries and businesses worldwide, the financial sector has been one of those hit the hardest. According to a survey by Boston Consulting Group, financial firms are 300 times more likely to experience a cyberattack than other institutions.
Cybersecurity threats are constantly evolving and new ones are being created every day. These threats have the potential to destroy everything you have worked for over the years.
While you cannot 100% guarantee prevention against cyber threats, you can manage risk against them.
Cybercriminals are targeting financial institutions
Financial institutions are among the most attractive targets because of the sensitive information they store, like customer accounts, credit card numbers, and social security numbers. If cybercriminals maliciously infiltrate a finance firm’s private networks or employee login details, the damage they can cause is devastating.
Cyber attacks against financial businesses result not just in the loss of money or private data, but the business’ reputation and customers. Trust is everything between a business and its clients, and people are understandably reluctant to reveal private and valuable information like their bank account details.
Several reasons financial institutions are targeted by malicious actors:
- centralized targets with large amounts of valuable information - heavily regulated
- most company's IT departments were not designed for cybersecurity
- often handle sensitive customer information like account numbers, usernames, and passwords
How cybercriminals are targeting financial businesses
There are many types of cyber violations that affect financial institutions, ranging from theft of personal information to denial-of-service attacks against a bank’s online portal.
Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that takes control of a device or system and locks its contents, making them inaccessible to the user. The victim must comply with the demands of the attacker in order to get access back to their data.
In this case, cybercriminals will ask for an online transfer or bitcoin payment in return for unlocking files from the ransomware virus.
Phishing attacks
One of the most common way hackers break into banks is by targeting employees with email phishing campaigns.
It is vital that all financial businesses train their employees on cyber security best practices, like carefully checking every link in emails before clicking on them, or disabling macros in Microsoft 365 software.
Data breaches
Cybercriminals can find out vulnerabilities in a financial business’ system by doing research on the internet. They study the company’s security policies and access points to identify potential loopholes. the systems financial institutions use to store and process data are complex and often contain a high number of vulnerabilities.
Data breaches can also occur from within the business itself; employees can maliciously or accidentally leak private data information. When this happens by accident, it can be down to ignorance on the employee’s part, such as emailing the wrong information or posting about work on their social media accounts.
Regular employee training in cyber security is vital to combat accidental data breaches and enhance your staff’s internal knowledge.
Denial of service attack
Denial of service attacks (DDoS) are becoming a huge problem for banks and credit card companies. They flood the organization’s website or application portal with traffic to make it unavailable for customers to use their services, cost the organizations a lot of money, and take up a lot of their time.
The attacks slow down or disrupt connections to the business sites, which can be detrimental to their customer base and reputation. It also reduces the revenue for those businesses as they lose customers due to the fraudulent transactions during the attack.
Business email compromise
Business email compromise (BEC) is a cybercrime tactic used to steal from major financial firms. It’s been on the rise during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the increase in remote work.
This technique replaces a business or individual’s contact for a malicious spam account, and then redirects money to their bank account.
Protecting your finance organization
With cyber threats on the rise, it is important for financial organizations to take precautions to protect their assets and customers.
There are a number of security measures that can be put in place to protect against these threats.
- Install antivirus software on all your devices, both on-premises and employee’s remote laptops or tablets.
- Enable two-factor authentication for every account that has the option for this security feature.
- Use a password manager tool to create strong passwords for every site you have an account with.
- Implement mandatory password changes regularly.
- Encrypt all the data on your business devices with a reliable solution.
- Update all software regularly.
- Delete browsing history and cached files regularly.
- Run employee training programs regularly.
Talk to the cybersecurity experts
Cyber attackers are growing slyer and more malicious at finding their way past your cybersecurity to steal valuable data from you and your customers. Keeping your networks secure is one of your top priorities – but can be difficult and time-consuming.
The security specialists at Solzorro have all the knowledge and expertise to strengthen your business’ cyber defences. Talk to a cybersecurity consultant today about your company’s requirements and get working towards a more secure future.
