Cloud-based threats are costing financial services US$4.2mn

After over a year since the outbreak of COVID-19, financial service industries have taken a considerable hit from cloud-based threats, outlined in Infoblox’s latest report.

Infoblox Inc, a Secure Cloud-Managed Network Services leader, unveiled new research into how the COVID-19 shutdowns challenged the financial services industry’s core infrastructure. More than one year into the pandemic, banks, insurers, and other financial institutions report costly consequences to falling short of protecting their massive data troves from cloud-based attacks and network disruptions.

Based on more than 800 responses from IT professionals working in the financial services industry in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the report highlights:

  • Data breaches are an increasingly significant cost burden for the industry: Worldwide, financial firms that experienced a data breach reported estimated average losses of roughly $4.2mn per attack, with US organizations hit hardest at $4.7mn in estimated losses.
  • Network outages also result in costly burdens: Institutions lose an estimated $3.2mn on average with Asia-Pacific followed by European institutions carrying the heaviest losses at $4.3mn and $3.1mn respectively.
  • The industry remains a popular target for cloud-based attacks: Over half of all organizations (54%) surveyed suffered a data breach in the last 12 months with 49% plagued by a cloud malware attack as well.
  • Cloud and network-based attacks will continue to be a major threat vector: More than 50% of respondents expect to face a combination of IoT attacks, cloud vulnerabilities including misconfigurations, and data manipulation attempts over the next 12 months.
  • Threat resolution teams are embracing network visibility for security hygiene: Globally, network monitoring (76%), threat intelligence (64%), and threat hunting (57%) are considered the most effective mitigation tactics against these threats.

READ MORE: 

“The financial services sector has long been a target for bad actors who are following the cyber money trail into the cloud,” said Anthony James, VP of Product Marketing at Infoblox. “As the pandemic pushed IT infrastructures to rely on remote work, cloud-based technologies that enabled digital transformation also created soft spots for cybercriminals to exploit.”

“This report shows us that cloud compromise has become the biggest cybersecurity issue for financial institutions and the investments they are making to protect themselves,” James continued. “Notably, respondents are starting to use DNS to catch network threats before they move upstream. This is reflected in the customer uplift we’re seeing for our BloxOne Threat Defense platform, which uses DNS to extend security to cloud-first infrastructure and accelerates threat resolution by orchestrating detection and remediation tools from the existing security stack.”

Download the report here.

For more news from Top Business Tech, don’t forget to subscribe to our daily bulletin!

Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter

Amber Donovan-Stevens

Amber is a Content Editor at Top Business Tech

Ab Initio partners with BT Group to deliver big data

Luke Conrad • 24th October 2022

AI is becoming an increasingly important element of the digital transformation of many businesses. As well as introducing new opportunities, it also poses a number of challenges for IT teams and the data teams supporting them. Ab Initio has announced a partnership with BT Group to implement its big data management solutions on BT’s internal...

WAICF – Dive into AI visiting one of the most...

Delia Salinas • 10th March 2022

Every year Cannes held an international technological event called World Artificial Intelligence Cannes Festival, better known by its acronym WAICF. One of the most luxurious cities around the world, located on the French Riviera and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. 

Bouncing back from a natural disaster with resilience

Amber Donovan-Stevens • 16th December 2021

In the last decade, we’ve seen some of the most extreme weather events since records began, all driven by our human impact on the plant. Businesses are rapidly trying to implement new green policies to do their part, but climate change has also forced businesses to adapt and redefine their disaster recovery approach. Curtis Preston,...