Like the Legal and Healthcare industries, the finance industry faces a unique set of cybersecurity challenges. Knowing the biggest threats endangering your organization will provide valuable insights into how you should protect your business, and financial institutions have a lot to worry about. According to reports, financial organizations were the target of over 25% of all malware attacks, which is more than any of the other 27 industries reported.
Banks and other types of financial firms are consistently targeted because of their access to sensitive and lucrative user data. Cybercriminals are deploying a variety of cyberattacks to gain access to financial networks, and the most common types of attacks include:
Ransomware: Ransomware restricts access to files unless the targeted organization pays the demanded monetary amount. Otherwise, private and confidential data is leaked. This type of attack is a top threat across every industry. Nearly 1 in every 3,000 emails that pass-through spam filters contain malware. Banks are dealing with increasingly destructive ransomware, and 25% of banks have experienced a ransomware attack in the last year.
Phishing: Phishing is a type of social engineering attack that tricks users into disclosing confidential information or clicking a malicious link. These types of scams typically arrive via email and are disguised as a trusted source, typically another employee or vendor. Phishing scams are getting increasingly more sophisticated and can be difficult to spot. It’s important that organizations have proper cybersecurity training in place to teach employees how to spot a potential phishing attempt.
Supply Chain Attacks: Cybercriminals use a supply chain attack by infiltrating the weakest point in a supply chain to access other businesses. For example, in the SolarWinds hack, the cybercriminals hacked the software provider in order to gain access to their customers’ data and systems. Financial institutions are particularly at risk given the number of vendors and companies they interact with.
Credential Stuffing: Hacking groups use credential stuffing to target financial providers such as banks and investment firms to steal financial assets. Hackers use bots and previously exposed credentials (usernames and passwords) to see if they have been reused on other accounts. Having multi-factor authentication is important to mitigate these types of attacks.
