Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI) sector are gearing up to beef up security systems, since the rise of mobile banking trends are putting IT infrastructure at growing risk.
Security investment is now a high priority for retail banking sector. Currently 64% of banks agree to the growing investment on improved and stronger IT security irrespective of the size of the organizations, their top management and even their customer database. Inspite of banks putting tremendous efforts to safeguard their perimeters against common and evolving cyber-threats, protecting IT infrastructure, ATMs and POS (Point of Sale) terminals have still become challenging. The fast and vast threat landscape, along with the newer challenges of improved security habits of customers, is forcing the criminals to search for vulnerable points.
Emerging risks:
Emerging risks on mobile banking are exposing the banks to newer and emerging threats. 42% of banks predict that most of the customers will use mobile banking in next three years. At the same time, the customers might be casual in their online behavior leading to open avenues for cyber criminals. 46% banks admitted that the customers are frequently victimized with phishing or debit/ credit card frauds leading to huge amount of financial loss.
Rising incidents of phishing are forcing the banks to reassess and restructure their security strategies. 61% of respondents see improvement in the security of apps and websites with introduction of more complex authentication mechanisms and multi-level verification of log-in details.
Persistent threats
The detection of unnatural and potentially malicious activities with the combination of legitimate tools and malware requires an advanced and extended mode. Till today, 59% of financial organizations are in the process of embracing multiple threat preventive measures which help in quick identification and mitigation of major emerging threats. ATM is another vulnerable device considered by banks. Sharing more third party intelligence, in this respect, could help banks prepare for unexpected threats.
ATM protection: Highly vulnerable
Banks have the tendency to show less concern regarding the threat of monetary loss due to ATM attacks. Only 19% banks are worried with attacks on ATM machines, inspite of the growing malware targeting this part of a banks’ infrastructure. This is expected to rise in the coming days if necessary mechanisms are not adopted in time.
According to eScan, a timely reminder of the growing threats faced by financial institutions can save numerous fraudulences. The users or customers need to be equally alert about these concerns. There are several guidelines which can change the scenario:
1) Never disclose/ write your login details anywhere
2) To do any online transaction, never hand over your smart phone to strangers like restaurant staff, supermarket attendant, mall employee, fuel station staff etc.
3) Ensure that you have installed a reputed mobile antivirus and regularly scan your smartphone for the presence of any suspicious app or detect and mitigate any suspicious activity.
4) Lastly, there has to be a regular supervision of your banking statements so that the discrepancies (if any) can be informed to the concerned bank.
2 Comments
sasi kumar
Yes, Because of most cyber criminals. Thanks for informative article. Learned some more Useful info’s.
Jeba kumar
Sure, Sasi Kumar!!