Surge in cyberattacks targeting financial services firms

Cyberattacks targeting financial services firms are on the rise, but are these organizations doing enough to protect business and customer data?

According to a Kaspersky Lab and B2B International survey of worldwide IT professionals, 93% of financial services organizations experienced various cyberthreats in the past 12 months. And while cyberattacks targeting financial services firms are on the rise, nearly one out of three still don’t provide protection of users’ endpoints or implement specialized protection inside their own infrastructure.

According to the survey, this lack of action to protect themselves from an attack is causing many businesses to lose faith in financial firms tasked with keeping their information safe. In fact, only 53% of businesses felt that financial organizations did enough to protect their information.

The survey also found that 82% of businesses would consider leaving a financial institution that suffered a data breach and that 74% of companies choose a financial organization according to their security reputation. This sentiment was echoed in a separate Kaspersky Lab Consumer Security Risks survey that found that 60% of consumers prefer companies that offer additional security measures to protect financial data.

The clear divide between what a business expects from a financial institution versus common perceptions toward the damage caused from a data breach is magnified further when you take into account that only 28% of financial services organizations think that the risk of damages from cybercrime is outweighed by the cost of prevention.

This mindset is particularly flawed given that 52% of financial institutions have a policy of reimbursing all losses caused by cybercrime without investigation and that the true cost of financial data loss is between $66,000 – $938,000 depending on the size of the organization.

However, the Kaspersky Lab survey uncovered a glimmer of hope for financial services organizations’ eventual turn toward implementing adequate security. 47% of financial companies think that loss of credibility/damage to reputation as a result of a data breach is the worst consequence to the company.

The complete survey is available here.