Search for Carbon Black and Optiv Security, Modern Bank Robbery: Bank Robbery Moves to Cyberspacefound that there has been a 160 percent increase in destructive attacks over the past twelve months.
The report reveals that 67 percent of financial organizations reported an increase in cyberattacks over the past twelve months and 26 percent were targets of destructive attacks.
One of the report’s authors and head of cybersecurity at Carbon Black, Tom Kellermann, said the report raised concerns for the industry.
“Financial institutions are battling some of the most sophisticated cybercrime syndicates.
“Perhaps the most worrying indication from this report is the sharp increase in destructive attacks, which are rarely carried out for profit,” he said.
Mr Kellermann said it appeared these attacks were aimed at destroying data and banks needed to be aware of this approach.
“Cybercriminals have developed sophisticated approaches to access confidential banking and financial information and organizations need to be aware of the imminent threats,” Kellermann said.
Although many attacks are aimed at destroying data, financial institutions (70%) are overall more concerned about financially motivated attackers.
Other key findings from the report include that 79 percent of financial institutions said cybercriminals had become more sophisticated and 21 percent had been victims of a site hack where visitors were misled to malicious pages.
The report reveals that the top threats to the financial sector are all Trojan in nature, with the top threat being the Generickd Trojan (36.3 percent), where stored files are encrypted and a ransom is demanded.
Bill Young, vice president of threat management at Optiv Security, said that as criminals become more sophisticated, it is important to assess their digital footprint.
“By using a holistic approach to cybersecurity – starting with risk mitigation and building from there to strategy, infrastructure rationalization, operations optimization and continuous measurement – we believe financial institutions can fill the gap vulnerability gaps and respond to new threats systematically. ” said Mr. Young.
The Carbon Black and Optiv report will become an annual report to inform institutions about attacks to watch out for.
