Cyber incidents targeting UK financial services providers surged in 2021

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Cyber security incidents targeting UK money solutions companies increased by 52% in 2021, in accordance to reports filed to the Financial Carry out Authority (FCA) and analysed by Picus Security.

An FOI filed by the cyber security company found that the greater part (65%) of the incidents claimed to the FCA had been cyber attacks, with 1 in 5 involving ransomware and virtually a third (31.9%) currently being classed as data breaches.

Picus Security found March 2021 to be the largest thirty day period for cyber security incidents involving economic products and services companies, with 21 cyber incident reports filed – a lot more than double the 2021 monthly average and triple the amount of incidents documented in March 2020.

According to Picus Labs scientists, the substantial spike could have been caused by the Hafnium hacking team, which at the time ended up identified to be exploiting the hugely-publicised Microsoft Trade Server vulnerabilities. The FCA, which regulates the exercise of additional than 50,000 financial services providers, was not immediately accessible to comment on the maximize in conditions.

Suleyman Ozarslan, co-founder of Picus Security and VP of Picus Labs, described the sizeable improve in cyber incident stories as “a regarding trend” that “should provide as an essential reminder to all corporations about the will need to make ongoing enhancements in all locations of security”.

“Financial expert services corporations are amongst the best organized and most hugely capable organisations at detecting and responding to cyber incidents. However, regardless of investing closely in security and data safety, it’s obvious that many keep on to encounter worries in these locations,” he said.

The money sector was one of the several industries which professional a rapid shift to remote operating owing to lockdown restrictions, starting to be dependent on online interaction which has lengthy been a preferred goal for cyber criminals.

In accordance to Ozarslan, fiscal expert services suppliers “had to contend with being a goal of Superior Persistent Threats and ransomware operators, as effectively as manage the challenges of critical vulnerabilities in commonly utilized devices these types of as Microsoft Trade Server”. 

“Only by difficult their defensive abilities on a continual basis can firms hope to measure their menace readiness much more correctly and quickly shut the gaps desired to consider their operational resilience to the following stage,” he added.

In 2019, the FCA mistakenly printed the own information and facts of about 1,600 men and women who had submitted issues in opposition to it, such as names and get in touch with aspects, on its internet site.

Some components of this short article are sourced from:
www.itpro.co.uk