Steven ZeniosThe year 2018 was a challenging year for wealth managers. Cyber-attacks have become effective in recent years, so effective that a smokescreen attack disrupted a bank’s operation for 2 weeks. The attack wiped thousands of computers at hundreds of branches and it was done as a cover-up to hide millions of illegal transfers.
In a different case, credentials were gathered over time via malware and then the stolen credentials were used to siphon $60 million from customer accounts.
Another example says that a bank employee stole 1.5 million customer records and shared the data with a criminal party.
According to the BCG report, the main problem of wealth managers regarding cybersecurity is that they don’t pay enough attention to people, processes and organisation but too much on technology.
Most wealth managers are only partially prepared to meet the upcoming challenges. They have limited awareness of the evolving threat landscape and challenges.
In basic terms, their knowledge and understanding of cyber risk is low so banks need to sharpen their focus by making key strategic decisions to reduce the risk of cyber risks.
