How mobile use cases in financial services are affecting security

Financial services organizations are increasingly exposed to cyber threats, according to Wandera.

The report “​Mobile Security in the Financial Services​,” includes analysis of six months of security data from 225 financial services customers with 50,000 devices collectively under management.

Notable findings

• There were 4.7 million events across the subset of devices analyzed over the 6-month period, averaging around 21,000 events per organization, on mobile alone
• Financial services organizations are experiencing a higher volume of phishing attacks than their peers outside the vertical (57 percent compared to 42 percent cross-industry)
• Financial services is at a higher risk of man-in-the-middle attacks (36 percent compared to 24 percent cross-industry) perhaps due to higher than normal travel activity and public Wi-Fi usage
• When it comes to cryptojacking, financial services employees appear to use devices more responsibly than other industries and, therefore, the overall device impact is far less (1 percent compared to 2.65 percent cross-industry)
• For every 20 people in financial services, there’s one individual with their lock screen disabled, which has huge ramifications if the device is lost or stolen
• Within financial services, almost 3 percent of iOS devices have sideloaded apps compared to nearly 4 percent of Android devices
• More users in financial services maintain their devices with the latest operating system and security patches, likely due to well-documented policies and a firm management strategy within financial services mobile programs.

“In the financial services industry, as in many sectors, the security of client information is the most important asset, so it’s disconcerting to find mobile security still an afterthought,” said Michael Covington, VP of Product Strategy at Wandera.

“Financial organizations are struggling to keep pace with increasing regulations, rapid cloud migrations and rampant BYOD adoption, among other emerging technology trends, making it crucial that industry security pros work to secure not just the devices, but also the apps installed on them and the data they access.”