Tech Engine Australia understands the importance of keeping your valuable data secure and out as they have worked with a range of international Financial Institutions.
Cyber-attacks are increasing and getting more sophisticated. The FCA has seen a spike in the last couple of years with firms reporting increased cyber attacks, which is also backed by recent statistics from the UK Office for National Statistics that show there were 2 million victims of cyber crime as well as bank account and credit card fraud incidents at an all time high during 2018/19.
The Cost of a Security Breach
In the UK, cyber security breaches cost businesses an average of £19k for large companies and £1.6k for small to medium-sized ones. But with sensitive financial information? The long term costs could be much higher! So it’s essential that we take steps to secure our data now before almost half a million more people are affected by these threats this year alone in the United States and Europe combined than last year according to recent research from Kaspersky Lab Security Network Intelligence Threat Report 2017.
Safeguarding Critical Financial Data
It’s not just the amount of information stored in your data center that needs to be protected, it’s also all personal and financial records. One way to protect these is by encrypting them so they require a password or encryption key before access can occur. That being said there are still many risks involved with this method as hackers know how valuable encrypted files could potentially be for their purposes if managed correctly!
Should you turn on an antivirus software? Absolutely- but only after making sure everything has been backed up properly first!
As financial services’ online infrastructures evolve and increase in numbers, procedures need to be in place to not only protect the data, but to also identify and alert the organisation of unauthorised access, or inappropriate handling of data by employees or third parties.
There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach
Tech Engine Australia are aware there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to
securing your data . Organisations should establish the security risk-management roles and decision-making processes that work for them.
Therefore, we work through a rigid framework to ensure Tech Engine Australia helps our client set up the perfect defences.
- Put good governance in place
Governance enables an organisation to control, direct and communicate their cyber- security risk-management activities. Governing how risks to technology systems are managed should be no different to the way organisations govern other business activities.
2. Identify what you need to protect
The complexity of organisations and the pace of change makes it difficult to keep track of your information and systems, and how they are linked and managed. The identify domain highlights the importance of understanding what it is you are trying to protect and how entities are linked. Without this it is not possible to take a risk-based approach within all other domains.
3. Protect your assets appropriately
Tackling external threats requires effective cyber security policies, standards, procedures and controls. These will protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your business services, while limiting and containing the impact of a potential cyber incident.
4. Use good detection systems
Firms must be able to detect actual or attempted attacks on systems and business services. Thorough and effective system monitoring is essential to detection and helps to ensure that systems are being used in line with organisational policies.
5. Be aware of emerging threats and issues
You need to be alert to emerging threats and issues to make informed cyber resilience decisions. This intelligence may come from a variety of internal and external sources, which highlights the importance of sharing intelligence when possible.
6. Be ready to respond and recover
Incidents will occur. The ability to respond and recover from them should be a key part of a business’s risk management and operational resilience planning. Resuming critical business services rapidly and with accurate data requires continuity planning and testing of plausible cyber-attack scenarios. Exercising people, processes and technology is a key aspect in preparing response and recovery planning.
7. Test and refine your defences
Testing the cyber defences of your whole organisation ensures you understand the effectiveness of controls across people, process and technology. A strong testing regime helps develop a culture for continuous improvement as issues are discovered and fixed.
Do you have any questions? We would love to hear from you!
Please get in touch today.
See our dedicated IT Services page for the Financial Industry.
