Did you understand the cyber security threats that financial firms face in our modern world?
Distributed Denial of Service Attacks
A Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDOS) is an attempt by hackers to overwhelm a service with traffic from multiple sources which can render the service unavailable. Imagine, therefore, that a banking institution is attacked in this way and that their systems are unable to provide a service. Customers do not have access to their money, nor can they complete online banking transactions. A service outage of this scale would certainly make the news and would certainly affect customers’ perceptions in regard to the safety of their money with that particular institution. Attacks of this type can take many different forms, with new ones being developed daily, and so financial institutions really need to be on the ball with protecting themselves.
Insider Challenges
There has been an increase in attackers from the Dark Web reaching out to employees within an organisation in order to try and purchase log-in credentials or to try and persuade them to sell intellectual property. Institutions know that it is impossible to keep all employees happy at all times and that often there are disgruntled employees on the shop-floor who might be tempted by such an approach. It’s not only about disgruntled employees, however, all it takes is one employee with financial issues, for example, to be lured by the promise of money and IT security is compromised. Insider information could be manipulated by hackers to make financial gain and customer confidence in the security of the institution can be lost. It is essential, in light of this threat, that financial services invest in insider threat detection programs, something that IT managed services can help with.
Third-Party Risk
When institutions work with a third-party they are placing trust in the systems that they use. If their cyber security measures are not robust enough it could compromise the institution's own security. If they choose to collaborate with third parties, as financial institutions often need to ensure that checks are carried out regularly to be sure that the other party is protected from attacks and that third-party shortcomings cannot jeopardise their business. These checks need to be continuous and immediate action taken if anything is found to be a threat, to protect the safety of your business so they should consider if they are able to maintain these levels of checks before going into partnership with other business. Using an IT managed service can be a major help, as they can take on the role of checking the systems of other companies on your behalf.
Future-proofing
There is no denying that the world is constantly changing, and cyber criminals are always developing new technologies with which they can try to hold your institution to ransom. It is vital that businesses stay abreast of all the new things that are happening out there in the dark web and that they develop ways to protect themselves from new types of attacks. As already stated, no financial institution can afford for their security to be compromised and so they must ensure there are no surprises when it comes to criminal cyber activity. It might seem that this is an onerous task and that it is too much for one organisation to take on individually. Using a managed IT service can help because they employ a host of IT professionals who network constantly to ensure they are kept in the loop of technological changes, most importantly when it comes to cyber security and they will always ensure this is fed back into the security systems of their clients.
By IT Force.
