Trust is a critical currency for all financial organisations – clients entrust their personal and financial data expecting this to be safeguarded at all times. The financial sector has one of the highest churn rates following a breach, underscoring the direct link between trust and customer loyalty. The average cost of a data breach in the financial sector is $5.9 million per incident, the second highest after healthcare. 40% of data breaches involved data stored across multiple environments.
Here are some other examples of fintech cyber-attacks reported in 2022:
– The OP Financial Group, the biggest financial firm in Finland with 180 cooperative banks and 2 million customers, suffered a cyberattack in which phishing messages, claiming to be from OP Group, asked the recipients to click on a link to confirm the payment.
– Qubit Finance, a decentralised lending and borrowing platform, was exploited by hackers and compromised nearly $80 million worth of cryptocurrency.
– TransUnion, a credit report agency, suffered from a massive data hack by ‘N4aughtysecTU’. This hacker group demanded a $15 million ransom over four terabytes of compromised data.
Conduct comprehensive risk assessments: identify and prioritise potential cyber threats, evaluate vulnerabilities in systems, applications and processes, use threat modelling and risk analysis tools, regularly update risk registers/assessments to reflect the changing threat landscape.
Develop and implement a comprehensive incident response plan: establish an incident response team and define roles and responsibilities, create a clear protocol for different types of cyber incidents, conduct regular drills and simulations, ensure clear communication and stakeholder plans for internal and external stakeholders.
Invest in continuous monitoring and threat detection: deploy advanced monitoring tools to detect suspicious activities in real-time, use Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, implement intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS), regularly review and analyse logs and security alerts.
Strengthen Identity and Access Management (IAM): enforce strong password policies and multi-factor authentication, implement role-based access control (RBAC) to limit access to sensitive data, regularly review and update permissions, use single sign-on (SSO) solutions to streamline and secure access management.
Enhance data protection and encryption: ensure data is encrypted both in transit and
at rest, implement robust data backup and recovery solutions, regularly test backup
and data recovery procedures.
Alan has worked in the tech industry for the past decade, helping customers in the commercial and public sectors improve their security postures. Prior to that, he worked at Tesco Bank leading their transformation projects.
Alan has a wealth of experience across the managed services industry and is responsible for developing and implementing Brightsolid’s commercial strategy. Alan also oversees Brightsolid’s marketing and communications strategy and works with our sales and product development teams to extend our market position in cloud, colocation and cyber security.
