Banks have always represented lucrative targets for cybercriminals – after all, as famed pre cyber era bank robber Willie Sutton said, “that’s where the money is.” A 2019 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that financial firms experience as many as 300 times more cyber-attacks than other companies, and the threat has only grown over the years.
One thing leads to another, as was true of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the Panic of 1907 and the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System in 1913. A series of bank runs threatened to hurl numerous firms into insolvency, but unified efforts in the fall of 1907 stemmed the tide, bringing stability and trust back to the sector.
As April turned to May, the ongoing economic expansion being experienced by the United States officially became the country’s second longest on record. The period, which began in June 2009 when the world’s biggest economy began to emerge from the Great Recession
In the aftermath of the United States 2016 presidential election, there has been much debate over whether Russian hackers interfered with the electoral process in order to help secure a victory for Donald Trump. Around the same time, however, it was revealed that Russia was the victim of cyberattacks of its own.
With billions to be made from hacking into their networks, banks around the world are having to expend more resources to thwart the efforts of ever-more enterprising cybercriminals. Although the threat is growing especially to banks in developing countries, efforts to stop it are also strengthening through collaboration among industry partners.
Banks today need more than lucky breaks to thwart the increasingly persistent and clever efforts of cybercriminals. The risk-management function of every bank today is facing a growing myriad of ever-intensifying threats, from hackers to terrorists, but fortunately there is ammunition at their disposal.