According to a new research by Blueliv, banking trojans have risen as the biggest threat to the Financial sector second only to mobile malware. A twitter poll conducted by cyberthreat intelligence provider Blueliv, from 11,000 users revealed that a third of respondents were concerned about the impact banking Trojans (31 percent) and mobile malware (28 percent) will have on financial services organizations and their customers in 2020. Tracking these financial threats, Blueliv researchers observed an increase in Trickbot banking trojan (283%) and a 130% increase in Dridex botnets. These Q2 and Q3 botnets are believed to be distributing banking trojans and malware in the financial sector and their customers.
Skill shortage and lack of visibility of threats present as security challenge- According to the poll, the financial sector is suffering from a major skill shortage in building security programs and identifying security threats - the most pressing being a shortage of skills (28 percent), followed by the high volume of threats and alerts (26 percent) and a lack of visibility into cyber threats (20 percent) (by Blueliv). Realwire quotes, "This is hardly surprising: as financial services institutions (FSIs) embrace digital processes and new customer interaction channels, so their attack surface grows, making it harder to keep on top of threats ranging from Point-of-Sale (PoS) to ATM malware, mobile apps malware to card skimmers."
A recent data by (ISC)2 shows that the global skills shortage has crossed 4 million. In Europe alone, the shortage has bypassed 100 percent. Daniel Solís, CEO and founder, Blueliv says, “Organizations in the financial sector face a constantly changing threat landscape. Business priorities have shifted and digital risk management is now central. Because they are such high-value targets for cybercriminal activity, it is imperative that financial services organizations monitor what is happening both inside and outside their networks in real-time to create effective mitigation strategies before, during and after an attack.”
He further commented, “FSI (financial services institutions) security teams can be easily overwhelmed by the number of threat alerts they receive which can very quickly result in alert fatigue and desensitization to real, preventable threats. Threat intelligence can address the cyber skills gap through continuous automated monitoring combined with the human resource to provide context, helping FSIs develop highly-targeted threat detection, prevention, and investigation capabilities.”
Financial organizations are prime suspects for attacks, even after having the most sophisticated cyber defense strategies, weak spots do remain and are being exploited by trojans and malware overlooked by fraud risk assessment teams due to skills shortage and poor threat visibility.
