How to Protect Sensitive Data & Maintain Client Trust in Financial Services Industry

What You Need to Know Today to Secure Your Organization for the Future

The financial services sector is transforming to meet clients’ evolving needs, presenting financial services organizations with new challenges and increased risk. These companies are mobilizing their people and technology to maximize speed, choice and convenience for their customers.

Cyberthieves are also benefiting from the modernization that’s occurring with the migration to cloud, the increased freedom of being able to work from anywhere, distracted remote workers, misconfigured cloud platforms, and overworked security staff who may lack the resources to concentrate on every new touchpoint.

According to a recent survey, half of financial services organizations do not have enough staff or budget to adequately support cybersecurity efforts. Attacks have skyrocketed in recent months, as the “new normal” brought on by COVID-19 provides new vulnerabilities for threat actors to exploit.

FINRA has recently warned financial services companies about a phishing campaign in a regulatory notice provided to its firms, encouraging anyone who may have been tricked into divulging any of their credentials to reset them immediately.

Learn about emerging email threats targeting financial institutions and how to defend against these sophisticated exploits. 

 

Sixty-nine percent of financial services organizations report having experienced a cyberattack at some point during their lifetime.

- Ponemon Institute/Keeper Security

Email Risk is Big in the Financial Services Industry 

Financial services companies face a plethora of persistent and highly dangerous email-borne threats on a daily basis. Some of the most common and costly exploits targeting financial services organizations include:

• Phishing: Cyber criminals utilize advanced social engineering and impersonation techniques to trick victims into giving up account credentials and sensitive data. These scams - which thrive during tax season - can be used to gain access to a companies’ direct deposit payroll system or steal valuable W-2 information, which can either be used to file fraudulent tax returns or sold on the dark web. 
• Ransomware: Usually delivered as a malicious attachment in a phishing email, this destructive type of malware encrypts computer files and demands payment for access to a digital key needed to decrypt the data. A ransomware attack can have devastating consequences for companies in the financial sector including significant downtime, financial loss and serious reputation damage.
• Business Email Compromise (BEC): In this sophisticated exploit, a threat actor obtains access to a corporate email account and sends fraudulent emails under the identity of the account owner in order to steal sensitive information and money from victims. This highly effective scam is widespread in the financial services industry, and has generated losses of $26 billion worldwide. High-speed trading firm Virtu Financial just recently disclosed that it paid out $6.9 million as a result of a BEC attack that the firm suffered in May. In this malicious attack campaign, a cyber criminal sat on the company's network for weeks - listening, watching and waiting, then surreptitiously tampering with account settings and sending fraudulent emails. The scam resulted in a transfer of funds to a Chinese bank.

 

Breaking Down the Financial Industry Threat Landscape

 

Banks & Credit Unions: 

Cybercriminals are narrowing the focus of their phishing and ransomware attacks - and the banking and credit union industry has emerged as one of the most popular targets. Breaches targeting this industry sector will continue to become more complex and difficult to prevent, as companies are reducing person-to-person contact and relying more heavily on email than ever, increasing the digital attack surface. Threat actors are also “upping their game” and refining their tactics, making attack campaigns increasingly effective. Attacks are timed and tailored for maximum effect, exploiting our anxieties, especially at times during a major crisis when we're least prepared.

Financial services companies are working to upgrade the security of their systems during this critical phase of building their remote workforce, and learning how to take advantage of the benefits of cloud in their environment. 

Security is a critical concern, particularly as more than 90% of all attacks originate through a phishing email. How are you protecting your people and data from advanced threats targeting Microsoft Office 365 and the heightened security risk businesses are facing in this new reality? Start with choosing the right cloud email security solution.

 

Payroll & Billing Firms:

The payroll and billing industry is a favorite focus of cybercriminals given the sensitivity of client data - and attacks impacting the industry are at an all-time high. Threat actors utilize advanced social engineering tactics to craft deceptive phishing and impersonation scams directed at payroll and billing firms. In this dangerous scam, threat actors email employees with a spoofed log-in page for an email host, allowing the attackers to use credentials to send legitimate-looking direct deposit change requests.

With the rapid evolution of attackers’ techniques, these malicious campaigns are becoming increasingly difficult to detect and employees can unknowingly fall prey to a phishing attack with just one click, putting the entire business at risk. Phishing attacks often result in business email compromise (BEC), direct deposit scams, payroll fraud and data breaches - all of which can have devastating consequences for firms, resulting in financial loss and serious reputation damage.

As criminals become more creative, it’s up to all of us to become more vigilant. Ensure that your most valuable assets are protected with a sound cloud email security solution capable of anticipating and blocking the most nefarious digital exploits.

 

Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security: Threat-Ready Email Vigilance for Financial Organizations 

For the past 20 years, we’ve been protecting our clients in the financial services sector against emerging threats targeting the industry. Key benefits of securing your business email with Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security include:

Keeps you ahead of emerging threats. Through a defense-in-depth approach to security, a collaborative open-source development model that uniquely provides us with access to tools and resources from an innovative global community and over 20 years of industry experience and engineering expertise, we keep businesses ahead of the latest, most sophisticated email attacks. 

Prevents email fraud. We implement multiple email authentication protocols including SPF, DKIM and DMARC to protect our clients from sender fraud, email spoofing and impersonation attacks. We also protect you from threats that don’t involve malware, such as credential phishing and other types of fraud. We scrutinize each email using hundreds of thousands of attributes of each email to determine whether it’s safe for you to open prior to it being received.

Safeguards against phishing, ransomware and impersonation attacks. Cyber thieves use malicious URLs embedded in phishing email to redirect users to fraudulent websites where they collect users’ credentials. We scan all URLs in real-time to detect malicious links leading to compromise. We also analyze all email attachments for ransomware and other malicious code, which can halt operations if downloaded onto your systems.

Protects sensitive information. We understand that data is a key asset that is highly sought after by cybercriminals. To ensure that your critical information remains safe, we implement layered email authentication standards and protocols - assuring that every email our customers receive is from who it says it’s from - not some malicious actor claiming to be the sender in an attempt to compromise sensitive information and credentials. Our complete, end-to-end email vigilance safeguards against data loss, tampering and theft.

Fortifies cloud email against credential phishing and account takeovers. Microsoft and Google are great at doing email - but not so great at email security. We provide critical additional layers of security in Office 365, G Suite and other vulnerable cloud platforms, seamlessly integrating with all existing platforms and effectively complementing these platforms’ insufficient default protection.

 

Guardian Digital has become a valued partner of Commerce Bank due to their depth of security and continued dedication in assisting us to protect our critical business communications.

- Jill Brungardt, Information Security Consultant, Commerce Bank

 

We partner with you to understand the threats you face, work with you to manage the protection needed to keep you safe and maintain the level of vigilance required to safeguard your organization from emerging threats.

 

We’re here to help you successfully navigate this time of crisis and plan for the future.

 

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