Financial institutions need to put cybersecurity at
the top of their agenda, according to a new report titled Cyber and the City.
Writing in one of the forewords, Mark Weil, CEO of
Marsh Ltd and chair of the of TheCityUK Cyber Taskforce, said that this isn’t
currently the case.
He explained that cyber vulnerabilities tend not to
be a key consideration of leaders in the financial and professional services
sector.
Usually, this important matter is “handled by
specialists”. While this is reassuring, it nevertheless needs to be
centralized.
“Outside of a very few firms, we do not yet see
cyber getting the attention it needs from business leaders.”
“Outside of a very few firms, we do not yet see
cyber getting the attention it needs from business leaders,” Mr Weil said.
“We seek to build on the progress already made, to
give the leaders of financial institutions a basis for staying ahead of the
criminals.”
The paper highlighted why the financial sector,
which includes banks, insurers and asset managers to name a few, is such a
target.
“It has the data and money to attract criminals,
the public profile to attract hacktivists and the criticality to the economy to
attract terrorists and hostile states,” it noted.
As such, any serious attack can have serious
repercussions not just on, for example, a bank, but its customers, the sector
and the wider economy.
When it comes to cyberattack responsiveness, the
authors of the report found that many firms understand that a very real threat
exists.
Accordingly, they have taken appropriate measures
to bolster their security. However, there is still a lot of work to be done.
For example, the study showed that cybersecurity is
not being “treated in a rigorous way”.
In other words, many firms have yet to establish
particular vulnerabilities, suggesting a more generalised approach to security.