According to a report, financial institutions tend to be at greater risk of data breaches due to a lack of proper security. Specifically, Netwrix conducted a series of studies, according to which financial institutions tend to use inadequate cybersecurity controls, thus making them more vulnerable to malicious attacks, compared to businesses operating in other sectors.
In its 2020 Data Security & Risk Report, Netwrix reports that financial institutions typically make two major mistakes. First, their IT teams provide employees with immediate access to sensitive and confidential data based solely on user request. Second, they are typically overloaded with handling data subject access requests (DSARs). These mistakes resulted in sensitive data from one-third of financial institutions being found in places it shouldn’t be, in the last year alone. Furthermore, nearly 70 percent of unauthorized data have resulted in a data breach. Finally, approximately 44 percent of financial institution CISOs and CIOs do not have or are unaware of having a key performance indicator (KPI) to report on IT security and cybersecurity risk.
Ilia Sotnikov, Product Management Representative at Netwrix, said that the COVID-19 has significantly increased digital payments, while financial institutions are creating more and more data, making the financial sector a tempting target for hackers. He added that poor and incorrect access management practices, as well as a lack of control over sensitive data, make the sector vulnerable to these ever-increasing threats.
Therefore, Sotnikov points out that financial institutions need to mitigate security risks by developing technologies that allow them to regularly check and correct rights , as well as move their sensitive and confidential data to a secure storage. This will help them improve their security despite increasing workloads and reduced resources.
