IT Security In The Financial Sector

As we move ahead from a busy May, which kept us all busy keeping ‘Wannacry’ at bay. We look back upon the world statistics of the attack and wonder if what measures we have implemented are holding the attackers back or its pure luck. It is always a sigh of relief that the most dreaded call “We are hit!” from a team member was not received. However, there is something inside us, which silently keeps the fear alive of when we are going to be next.

- Neehar Pathare

Although there have been numerous articles on IT security that we read day in and out, I am sure the facts below would definitely raise a brow. As the global economy grows exponentially so does cyber-crime.

The Financial Services Sector is the most targeted sector by cyber criminals and will remain so.

Statistics of Present Attacks

Everyday 300,000 unique malicious object, that’s right everyday.

Cybercrime costs the world USD 400-500 billion per year. (*Lloyds Insurance and Juniper research)

The Bangladesh Bank heist: Stolen - USD 81 Million (4 orders) Blocked because of typo (Fandation)USD 870 Million (31 orders) Could say the most expensive typo in human history.

The Carbanak attack: USD 1 Billion. The most sophisticated attack known till date, where 100’s of bank machines were infected and slowly the entire bank intelligence was harvested. Followed by mimicking the staff to transfer funds to fraudster accounts, E-payment systems, inflating accounts and finally ATMs were made to dispense cash at a predetermined time.

Percentage of these in financial sector:

• 30 percent of all cyber-attacks happen on banks and this is increasing.

• After demonetization, there are a number of reports pointing to a surge in cybercrimes related to One Time Password (OTP) fraud, as well as sprouting of malicious mobile applications.