The Critical Relationship Between Cyber & the Financial Sector - Enhance your Defence with MDR
Cyber threats are not slowing down.
Enhancements in AI, Ransomware-as-a-Service schemes and an alarming lack of cyber awareness or prevention across the board is creating the perfect storm for cyber criminals.
The most recent government statistics reveal that around half of businesses have fallen victim to some form of cyber attack or breach in the past 12 months. However, these numbers rise significantly when we look specifically at reported cyber incidents among medium (70%) and large enterprises (74%).
These numbers illustrate the extent to which cyber threats are a very real, active and serious risk to your organisation – and without appropriate cyber security measures and awareness in place, your organisation could very well end up being included on the wrong side of next year’s statistics.
The Financial Sector is A Top Target
The finance sector consistently ranks among the top, most targeted sectors* for cyber attacks, consolidating the need for stronger cyber resilience and awareness across the industry. Our partners ACCA, noted a significant uptick in targeting since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with accounting firms experiencing a staggering 300% increase in attacks.**
You can read more about the challenges facing the accounting sector and the steps we recommend taking to combat the risks in our article - Securing the Accounting Sector
The amount of sensitive data held and stored within financial firms, in addition to the complex organisational structure of many businesses operating within the sector make the financial industry both a lucrative target for cyber criminals and one with several potential attack vectors.
According to Gartner, financial institutions are expected to increase cyber security spending by $212 billion in 2025.*** This is in part due to the increasingly strict regulatory environment firms are facing – for example the recent introduction of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) for organisations operating within the European Union and aiming to create a baseline for ICT resilience in the financial sector.
Is Threat Prevention Being Overlooked?
Around half (51%) of businesses reported taking some kind of threat prevention steps within their organisation – with only around 30% utilising specific tools designed for security monitoring and carrying out cyber risk assessments.
We know that around 95% of cyber attacks are the direct result of human error, and with that in mind, it’s particularly concerning that only 18% of businesses reported testing staff members with exercises such as phishing simulations. Lack of cyber awareness is arguably one of the biggest challenges an organisation needs to overcome if it wants to secure itself from the many threats that exist. Cyber resilience starts with education and awareness and without that foundation, your employees will always be a huge weak point in your cyber security strategy.
Rachael Ball, Director at LHP Accountants, speaking recently at PureCyber’s Knowledge is Power: Finance & Cyber, The Winning Combination - Wales Week London event in partnership with ACCA; shared her insights on the importance of cyber awareness training and how it has helped mitigate cyber incidents within her organisation.
The importance of cyber awareness is clear, and by ensuring your organisation has a strong cyber security foundation at the employee level, you’re already going some way to protecting your firm from some of the most widespread and disruptive cyber threats.
Steps in the Right Direction?
It's not all bad news though – the most recent government data recorded a significant increase among medium sized businesses having a formal cyber security strategy in place (up from 49% to 58%).
There are also promising statistics surrounding organisational cyber controls being adopted:
83% of businesses reported having up-to-date malware protection
72% ensured their staff adhered to a strong passwords policy
71% reported regularly backing up data securely via a cloud service
75% utilised firewalls that cover the entire IT network – as well as individual devices
Additionally, around half of businesses now have a formal policy in place to not make ransomware payments, and whilst this only accounts for just under 50% of businesses, it’s a strong step in the right direction to making ransomware attacks a less attractive option for cyber criminals.
Steven Ades, Chief Strategy Officer at AerFin, gave an account of his own experiences with raising the issue of cyber security within his own organisation and the positive reception received from the firms investors - highlighting the importance of brand perceptions and building trust among customers and suppliers in industries where security, customer safety and trust are all core elements of service delivery.
With many firms putting greater emphasis on their reputation as cyber secure, conversations around cyber security investment at both an executive and investor level are more common than ever before. The importance of a robust cyber security process is being recognised and thus investment into this side of an organisations operational strategy is now being considered as a top priority among many firms.
The value of a strong organisational cyber strategy is no longer something only IT leads and CISOs are concerned with, organisation executives and CFOs are also seeing the value in securing their organisations from the vast range of current and future cyber threat.
John Young, Chief Financial Officer at Football Association Wales gave his account on the increasing number of cyber threats and breach attempts that FAW have encountered in recent years - highlighting the importance of cloud security as organisations like FAW continue to move data storage to cloud based systems.
Taking Your Cyber Security to a Deeper Level with PureCyber Managed Detection Response (MDR)
PureCyber’s Managed Detection Response provides real-time records of the activities and events taking place on various endpoints and all workloads - providing security teams with the visibility they need to uncover incidents that would otherwise remain invisible.
Our MDR solutions record and store endpoint-system-level behaviours, use various data analytics to detect suspicious system behaviour, provide contextual information, blocks malicious activity, and provides remediation suggestions to restore affected systems.
PureCyber MDR:
24/7 Threat Monitoring & Response - Continuous, real-time threat monitoring & rapid incident response by security experts.
Advanced Threat Detection - Utilises behavioural analysis and machine learning to identify and block sophisticated threats.
Proactive Threat Hunting - Security analysts actively search for hidden threats, leveraging global threat intelligence.
Centralised Management & Reporting - Centralised console for managing security, with real-time alerts and complete reporting.
Scalable Solutions - Flexible deployment options for businesses of all sizes, supporting both cloud and on-premises environments.
How Can PureCyber Help?
Our team of cyber security experts are here to take over the burden of your cyber security and ensure your organisations data remains secure and well managed, with proactive monitoring and real-time threat intelligence - providing you with a comprehensive and reliable cyber department to support you in all aspects of your security efforts, including: 24/7 Security Operations Centre (SOC) services, Managed Detection & Response (MDR/EDR) Threat Exposure Management (TEM) & Brand Protection Services, Penetration Testing, & Governance Support.
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Sources:
GOV.UK Cyber Security Beaches Survey 2024
* Statista - Global Distribution of Cyber Attacks Across Industries 2023