Gerald Beuchelt,
CISO, LogMeIn
industry unlocked
Banks and financial institutions are frequently
targeted by cybercriminals. Gerald Beuchelt,
CISO, LogMeIn, discusses the steps that
those operating within this industry vertical
can take to strengthen defences and step up
enterprise security.
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Cyberattacks are increasing at an alarming
rate and in 2018 we witnessed breaches hit
several trusted brands across various industries,
including British Airways, Ticketmaster and, most
recently, Facebook.
However, the financial sector continues to be
one of the most lucrative targets for criminals:
UK banking customers lost £358 million to
unauthorised fraud in the first half of this year.
With the appeal of huge financial gain, along
with access to a wealth of high value personally
identifiable information (PII), it’s perhaps
unsurprising that financial services firms are
targeted more than any other sector.
Although the threat landscape is fast evolving and
attackers’ techniques are becoming increasingly
sophisticated, passwords continue to play a
major role in breaches: 81% of data breaches
involve weak, reused or stolen credentials.
Bearing in mind the level of risk involved in banks
and financial institutions, we could be forgiven
for assuming that such organisations would be
ahead of the game in their security practices.
However, a recent study that scored businesses
on password practices and multi-factor
authentication (MFA) adoption found the industry
performing below average.
With security practices continuing to plague
organisations, what steps can banks and
financial institutions take to strengthen defences?
Technology: Invest and evaluate
Breaches occur when vulnerabilities within a
company’s security architecture are exploited
by attackers. Cybercriminals,
especially those motivated by the huge
potential monetary rewards in attacks
on financial institutions or FinTech
companies, are constantly adapting
and evolving their techniques, so the
financial industry must continue to
invest in technology to stay ahead and
defend against emerging threats.
Banks simply cannot afford to
make assumptions about the
effectiveness of their technological
defences. Just because something
protected a business last year (or even
last month), that doesn’t mean it will
be sufficient today.
While risk assessments of critical
systems should be a regular occurrence
within financial institutions, organisations
should also ensure they assess
secondary systems containing non-
critical assets.
Employee-private activities and
accounts, such as personal emails or
Facebook, are still potential gateways to
an internal network, so authentication
policies should be a main focus of
these assessments.
It’s also important that organisations
consider roles and permissions to
ensure employees only have access to
the information they need to carry out
their job. Implementing privileged access
management technology can help
mitigate the risk of data falling into the
wrong hands.
Issue 13
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