According to a Kaspersky Lab survey of IT professionals worldwide, almost half of businesses in the e-commerce/retail (48%) and financial services (41%) sectors are likely to lose some type of financial information over the course of a year, either through targeted attacks, application vulnerabilities, or other forms of digital incidents.
While both business sectors share this similarity, their attitudes towards security technology differ. Just 53% of e-commerce businesses said they would “go to great lengths to ensure they have up-to-date anti-fraud measures in place,” a figure 10% lower than the global average. As the business model of online commerce is based on payment processing, this reluctance to invest in anti-fraud measures could lead to losses in the event of a security incident.
The financial services sector is taking a more positive and proactive approach to protecting financial data. 64% of companies in the sector said they “will make every effort to have up-to-date anti-fraud measures in place.” Additionally, 52% of financial services providers said they are willing to implement new technologies to protect transactions, compared to 46% in the e-commerce/retail sector.
After a violation
In the Kaspersky Lab survey , companies that experienced a major data loss incident were asked to describe the steps they took to protect their customers. Despite their different behaviors, both the e-commerce and financial services sectors took similar measures, implementing additional protection measures. The most common measure implemented was “providing secure connections for customer transactions.” This measure was implemented by 88% of financial services organizations and 78% of e-commerce companies. On the other hand, financial services providers are more focused on offering specialized solutions for mobile devices than e-commerce companies (75% vs. 56% respectively).
Generally speaking, the last step taken by both financial services providers and e-commerce companies after a data breach is to provide free or discounted premium versions of security software to their customers. It seems that both sectors are more willing to invest in protecting their own systems than in the security of their customers’ systems.
Finally, despite the relatively high adoption rates of specialized fraud protection solutions (71% in financial services and 62% in e-commerce), the opposite reading of these numbers is noteworthy. These numbers show that approximately one-third of businesses in both sectors are still not investing in financial security software, even after cases of financial information being stolen from them.
Recommendations
Security research shows that companies that specialize in collecting and processing payment information are a target for cybercriminals. Kaspersky Lab research shows that these companies are most likely to lose payment data through a data breach. Instead of taking action after attacks, it is recommended to proactively implement actions to protect corporate networks, as well as secure payment systems with specialized solutions.
Companies should use a comprehensive security solution, such as Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, which helps to comprehensively protect a corporate network from malicious digital attacks, phishing attempts and other digital threats, while at the same time offering IT executives a single and easy-to-use management console, providing visibility and control over security policies applied to a corporate network. Financial services also need specialized solutions, such as Kaspersky Fraud Prevention, which protects customer terminals, including mobile devices. Kaspersky Lab’s solution also offers a Software Development Kit to enhance the security of mobile banking applications. This anti-fraud security platform also includes Kaspersky Lab’s threat intelligence services, which help to increase employee awareness of digital threats.
For more information about Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business and Kaspersky Fraud Prevention, please visit www.kaspersky.com/business-security/ and https://www.kaspersky.com/business-security/fraud-prevention.
