Published: October 6, 2020
With employees working from home, banks and other financial institutions have become more vulnerable to cyber attacks. So what can they do to mitigate the risks associated with the ‘new normal’?
Cyberattacks on banks have long been a concern. In recent years, they have led to significant losses of both funds and financial data, with cybercriminals growing smarter as banks ramp up their security strategies.
Within the UK alone, we have seen denial of service hacks on Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, along with the theft of £2.5mn from Tesco Bank customers in 2016 and a fraud attack on Metro Bank in 2019.
Elsewhere in EMEA, the situation is no different: between 2017 and 2019, Russia’s Sberbank experienced a suspected data leak; the European Central Bank uncovered a data breach; and eight Eastern European banks were targeted from the inside.
Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated what was already a challenging situation. Since the start of the pandemic, attacks on banks and other financial institutions have spiked.