Hackers are getting smarter and more sophisticated in their attacks on financial firms. Their goal? Get inside your network and remain undetected as long as possible until they can escalate their attack and gain access to sensitive data or compromise systems.  Your Goal?  Stop them before they cause damage.

Increased cybersecurity investments have made attacks more difficult the financial sector, but, high finance still remains a major attack target - with a lot to lose. In 2015, financial service businesses were hit with cyber attacks 300 times more frequently than businesses in other industries. Most attacks included some element of data or credential theft.

JPMorgan Chase, where in 2014 the financial records of 76 million households and seven million small businesses were compromised, is a reminder of the severity of a breach. This attack, and the potential for more has prompted JPMorgan Chase to spend half a billion dollars on cybersecurity in 2016 —twice what it had budgeted previously.

Andy Cadel, general counsel, IP and data protection for JP Morgan Chase was quoted as saying, ““JP Morgan is going to spend a half-billion dollars on security this year, and we still feel challenged,”

Money Alone Can’t Buy Cybersecurity

As evidenced by the brazen, far-reaching hack on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in May of this year, money alone can’t buy security. To stand a chance against today’s highly adaptive threats, financial entities need to adopt a strategy where security is thought as a whole, not one of parts. Security technologies  that can easily communicate with each other and share threat information improve an organization's overall ability to stop threats.

A cybersecurity infrastructure should be focused on three core capabilities—prevention, detection, and mitigation.

1. Prevention

When it comes to cybersecurity, an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure. Conducting an audit of both IT and physical security systems is critical to understanding where you could be vulnerable

Use an independent, third-party security expert to conduct your audit to avoid overlooking potential pitfalls an internal audit is less likely to catch.  An example of missing key issues internally, involved an office heating system that was controlled via the Internet, and therefore provided a point of entry for hackers, who were then able to escalate privileges and gain access to corporate data.

Testing protocols should involve the your end users who may be making common errors, such as using easily guessable passwords or clicking on attachments from unknown users. Instituting best practices such as two-factor authentication and encrypted communications are other measures that should be part of your plan.

2. Detection

Today’s threats are increasingly sophisticated and often bypass traditional malware security controls by masking their intent. No matter how strong your defenses, a malicious hacker or insider threat will find away around your controls.  Advanced threat detections, like sandbox technology, can detect unknown and zero day threats, and flag suspicious programs based on behaviors, not just signatures. With sandboxing, unknown or suspicious code  are tested for validity in a secure environment before being unleashed on the larger network.

3. Mitigation

As a component of a layered defense, once a threat is identified, you need to decided how it will be mitigated.  An immediate response will mitigate the scope and severity of compromise. Mitigation can be automated by leveraging technology to drive direct intelligence sharing between detection and prevention products, or with assisted mitigation — a combination of people and technology working together.

There is a growing trend in which sophisticated cyber criminals are targeting smaller banking institutions, credit unions, small hedge funds, and a wide variety of other mid-tier enterprises, because they are considered easier prey. This does not mean that the big financial institutions are out of the woods.  The larger the target, the larger the reward – and intelligent, sophisticated hackers are up for the challenge.

“Larger banks are getting harder to penetrate since they’ve invested in security for years. They’ve had their big breach through which they get religion, they get spend [more budget] and they get harder,” said Bill Stewart, an EVP with Booz Allen. 

Your approach to cybersecurity will make all the difference when hackers start knocking at your door.  Fortinet is the right choice to keep your doors locked and your vaults closed.  Contact us.