Attacks on online services cost banks over $1.7 million

A cybersecurity incident involving a bank's online banking services costs the organization $1,754,000 on average, around double the price of recovering from a malware incident.

This is among the findings of Kaspersky Lab's Financial Institutions Security Risks survey released today, which shows that 61 percent of cybersecurity incidents affecting online banking come with additional costs for the institution targeted. These include data loss, loss of brand or company reputation, confidential information leaks, and more.

Recovering from a DDoS attack is also more expensive for banks ($1,172,000) to recover from than non-financial organizations ($952,000). The report shows that when organizations are attacked by DDoS, customer-facing resources suffer more in banking, than in any other sector. For example, 49 percent of banks that have suffered a DDoS attack have had their public website affected (compared to 41 percent of non-financial institutions) and 48 percent have had their online banking services affected when they’ve been targeted by DDoS.

Despite this DDoS attacks, according to the report, only rank in third place for financial institutions. They have greater concerns about malware and targeted attacks, despite the fact that a DDoS event is more costly to recover from than a malware attack.

"In the banking sector reputation is everything, and security goes hand-in-hand with this," says Kirill Ilganaev, head of DDoS protection at Kaspersky Lab. "If a bank's online services come under attack, it is very difficult for customers to trust that bank with their money, so it's easy to see why an attack could be so crippling. If banks are to protect themselves effectively from the price tag of an online banking cybersecurity incident, they first need to become more prepared for the dangers DDoS attacks pose to their online banking services. This threat should be featuring higher on banks’ security priorities."

Kaspersky Lab is encouraging financial institutions to share security intelligence to better prepare for and combat threats. You can read more about the report's findings on the Kaspersky blog.

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