Originally published on fintechmagazine.com.
CTO at Clearswift, Dr. Guy Bunker, discusses his views on the top threats to finance and how to mitigate them.
Recent reports show that cyber-attacks on financial services sector rose fivefold in 2018 and in April 2018, seven of the UK's biggest banks suffered major cyber-attacks that forced them to reduce operations or even shut down systems. The cyber threatscape is ever-evolving and financial institutions are being targeted by cyber-criminals in new ways due to the increasingly significant value of financial data. It is therefore vital that financial institutions are not only aware of the rising threats from malicious cyber-criminals but should also go above and beyond to secure their critical data.
Today’s cyber-criminal is unlikely to be an individual, but is more likely to be part of a gang of highly trained people who will buy and sell the information they collect on the dark web, as well as information on vulnerabilities they find in the networks they are attacking. The software they use will typically be multi-purpose and ‘commercialised’ by other cyber-gangs. This is no longer the era of a ‘hacker’ in the back-bedroom trying to make a name for themselves, cyber-crime is big business and unfortunately growing.