Top 5 Cybersecurity Challenges for the Financial Service Industry

Cybersecurity Challenges for the Financial Service Industry

Every year, millions of consumers are affected by cybersecurity threats. It does not matter how prepared an organization is, hackers find new ways to break into systems and cause information breaches. The problem is that much more sensitive when it comes to financial service organizations. With crucial data at stake, organizations face many challenges in beating these threats. Elaborated below are the top 5 cybersecurity challenges for financial service organizations.

Evolution of Organization

Technology is transforming our everyday lives; what we do today seems to become obsolete in the next year. The progression of technology is so rapid that we cannot afford to embrace stable scenarios. The same mentality goes for the finance industry. Customers expect new features to be continuously extended; they want attractive interfaces with zero loading wait. Although these features are appealing, customers often don’t realize that these things might come at a cost.

Often during updates glitches may be introduced. Additionally, financial organizations need to maintain security measures and not let data become compromised at the expense of exciting new features. The government also sometimes imposes specific restrictions on the elements that a finance organization can extend to the public. Therefore, the pressure is double fold—at one hand they want to forge modernity and satisfy the customers’ expectations, on the other, they must conform to security measures.

Evolving Threats

Believe it or not, many of the minds involved in breaching information are much more skilled and intelligent than the ones involved in creating the information base. Every year, the loss due to cybercrime continues rising. Hackers have access to all minute details; complexities that are unethical to be explored by even engineers. With such restrictions, engineers often find it challenging to match pace with overriding hackers.

Security matters become worse when hackers keep evolving their attacking strategies and growing more dangerous with every advancement; they have ready procedures for future updates and can form specialized teams to target particular releases. In such scenarios where criminals are always one step ahead of the organization, tackling threats becomes very difficult, resulting in a significant loss of data, productivity, and time.

Security Planning

You must acknowledge that cybersecurity is more than just a technology problem; it requires a strategic approach to optimizing the system entirely. Building a firewall is indeed a crucial step toward real-time security, but your defense arsenal cannot be limited to one measure. You must also weave a strong cybersecurity web into the full management structure. It is vital to learn to prioritize data based on a sensitivity index. The higher the index, the more intricate security system you must deploy to your data.

Changing Dynamics and Increased Threats

Organizations cannot lag when concerning the expectation of its customers. Features such as e-wallet support, internet banking, and SMS banking have become increasingly popular. While being handy and easy to access with your fingerprints and quick passcodes, these invite potential risks too. Often security updates are not installed on smartphones can make the apps installed vulnerable to attacks. With continuous updates, firms can reduce the threat level, but it eventually depends on the device’s security level. An old platform will soon succumb to internal and external threats and will quickly perish.

Threats Inside Out

It is often reported that internal sources cause security breaches. In some circumstances, employees find sensitive data lucrative and try to smuggle it out of the system. If not, then they might use it for their benefits — such deals bring no significant wealth since the banking systems employ 2-step verification in most domains, but it nonetheless affects the reputation of the organization. The faithfulness of employees needs to be in constant check to reduce the scope of such threats. Employing strict surveillance and encrypting data may be the initial measures that can be taken.

We have discussed some of the most prominent challenges that financial service organizations are facing. Some things cannot be avoided, such as meeting customer’s expectations, upgrading services, etc, but what is equally necessary at the same time is that advancements don’t come at the expense of security. By seeking help from experts, organizations can become prepared to face these genuine challenges.

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