[ C Y B E R - S E C U R I T Y ]
SECURITIES MARKET
‘MOST AT-RISK’
OF CYBER ATTACKS,
SAYS SWIFT REPORT
The financial gain for a hacker targeting securities market infrastructures
is high, while custodians and brokers are also at risk.
A
report published by SWIFT
has identified the securities
market as one of the ‘most
at-risk’ areas for cyber-crime.
Custodians, broker-dealers
and market infrastructure providers such
as central securities depositories (CSDs)
are all being encouraged to embrace
‘checks, communication and data’ to fend
off attacks.
The report, produced in partnership with
BAE Systems, highlighted that increas-
ing transaction speeds, including high
frequency trading, make securities markets
more susceptible to sophisticated attacks.
SWIFT explained the potential finan-
cial gain for a hacker targeting market
infrastructures is high, while participants
are also at risk of being seen as more
vulnerable.
Some of the ways market infrastruc-
tures, such as CSDs and clearing houses,
can be targeted include hackers manipu-
lating market and reference data such as
Standing Settlement Instructions (SSIs)
and pricing, along with attacking the
mechanisms which match trades and cal-
culate settlement values to fraudulently
increase the gain on trades.
“Over recent years, SWIFT has made
good progress supporting financial
institutions in their fight against well-or-
ganised cyber attackers – but this report
shows that now is not the time to sit back
and take this progress for granted,” said
Brett Lancaster, managing director, global
head of customer security at SWIFT.
“As cyber criminals become ever more
innovative and agile, we need to continue
to work together to build even stronger
defences. Through our Customer Security
Programme, we have been assisting the
payments, securities, trade finance and
foreign exchange sectors to better protect
their immediate surroundings and have fa-
cilitated better information sharing to help
equip the industry with the tools it needs
to combat cyber-crimes. This report is a
timely reminder that we need to go further
still to keep ahead of the criminals.”
The report echoes comments at the
2018 Sibos conference in Sydney, where
SWIFT’s global head of customer security
issued a similar warning.
“If people are attacking the kind of firm
that works with SWIFT, then what is the
limitation to why they should only be tar-
geting payments? The fear is they could
be looking at financial services within the
securities market…There’s no reason why
this couldn’t spill over,” said Lancast-
er. “We have currently seen no attacks
within our customer base in the securities
market, but it’s always a comma, yet.”
Following its symposium in May, the
International Securities Services Asso-
ciation (ISSA) released a report, where
it concluded that although the securi-
ties services industry has so far escaped
unceasing cyber-assaults of this kind, it
would be complacent to assume this state
of affairs will continue.
January 2019
SecuritiesAtSibos.com
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