Financial services to boost security investment on account of breach risks

Virtually every second global financial services organization was a victim of a data breach sometime in the past, according to a newly released Thales report.

The 2017 Thales Data Threat Report, Financial Edition, says 49 percent of financial services organizations suffered a breach, with a fifth (21 percent) being breached more than once. Nine in ten (90 percent) feel more vulnerable to such incidents.

As a result, more than three quarters (78 percent) are spending more to protect themselves.

Almost all (92 percent) will deploy advanced tech, such as IoT, big data or cloud services, with 73 percent doing so before actually preparing appropriate security solutions.

Six in ten (60 percent) view privileged users as the biggest threat, followed by executives (48 percent) and contractors (38 percent).

Among external factors, cyber criminals are considered the biggest threat (40 percent), followed by nation-states (18 percent), hacktivists (16 percent) and competitors (13 percent).

"While the financial sector has made substantial technological advances, it’s still tied to security solutions that worked in the past but aren’t necessarily the most effective at stopping modern attacks," said Garrett Bekker, principal analyst for information security at 451 Research.

"There are a number of data security technologies – such as encryption and key management solutions -- that could arguably do a better job of protecting data, particularly data being used in cloud, big data and IoT environments."

The report also says that more than half will boost investments in network security and endpoint solutions, as well as data-in-motion and data-at-rest defenses.

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