The importance of cybersecurity has touched almost every industry. Beyond that, robust cybersecurity is table stakes for several sectors, particularly health care and the banking and finance industry. Not only is financial data at risk, but so is customer trust. In banking and finance, trust means everything.
Yet, consumers are hesitant to share their confidential data. A recent McKinsey survey revealed that no industry achieved a trust rating of 50% for data protection.
Here’s the most sobering stat: 87% of respondents said they’d refuse to do business with any company that they perceived as having weak security practices.
When banking and finance data breaches occur — and they do happen often — they don’t always stem from a bad actor. Often, breaches come from poorly secured third-party apps or a lack of proper user authentication protocols.
Banking and Finance Data Breaches
Several data breaches struck these industries over the last year. What can we learn from them?
In January of 2021, attackers breached the accounts of three million Morgan Stanley corporate customers. The breach, reported in July, involved a third-party vendor. Attackers could access client names and addresses, social security numbers, date of birth and company names. The bank reported that attackers successfully exploited a vulnerability in the vendor’s server. Although the vulnerability was quickly patched, attackers still managed to obtain a decryption key for the encrypted files.
In December of 2021, crypto exchange Bitmart suffered a breach banking finance
