With warnings of a major online attack imminent, UK Finance, which represents around 300 firms in the finance and banking industry, is calling for greater collaboration to tackle growing cyber threats
The trade association has published a report in collaboration with KPMG which says wider cooperation both within businesses and between firms, law enforcement and government is critical, despite the fact industry research shows that the finance industry spends three times more on cyber security compared to other sectors.
Ensuring internal control and compliance functions work simultaneously to detect and block cyber-attacks, coupled with a ‘community response’ that counteracts the agile and complex cyber criminals, are fundamental to enabling the finance industry to improve its cyber crime prevention, the report suggests.
Stephen Jones, CEO UK Finance, said: ‘Cyber crime has the potential to seriously damage our economy and broader society, so to get one step ahead, the finance industry must revise its approach to cyber security.
‘It’s not just about straight forward governance or risk and control issues as this report demonstrates. Strategic collaboration is needed through close integration with external agencies including the National Cyber Security Centre, National Crime Agency and police forces, to build a robust intelligence sharing model, in order to be more effective about tackling the ever-increasing cybercrime threat.’
Amongst the report’s recommendations are greater collaboration, so that firms can block activity and respond to any security breach or data theft; more work to disrupt the infrastructure used by criminals; making it harder to exploit stolen data by revoking stolen credentials or by priming fraud controls to detect the use of stolen data; more work to tailor anti money laundering controls; and a campaign to raise awareness of the issues and increase the risk to criminals.
David Ferbrache, CTO, Cyber, KPMG UK, said: ‘Cyber crime is costing UK institutions billions, but more importantly it erodes trust and leaves customers vulnerable. As a community we need to do more to understand the mindset of the criminals, to share intelligence on their actions and be ready to disrupt those operations.’
Staying ahead of cyber crime is here.
Report by Pat Sweet
