UK Banks Targeted in Cyber Attacks

Facebook.com/storetec

Storetec Services Limited

@StoretecHull www.storetec.net

The Bank of England has said cyber attacks on the UK banking sector continue to pose a significant risk to its stability.

In its latest Financial Stability Report, the central bank outlined a series of potential risks and noted that the high cost of tackling hackers is one significant issue. It has cost over £20 billion to tackle these since 2011 and the latest data, gathered since June, has shown there is still considerable vulnerability.

The report stated: "In the past six months, several UK banks and financial market infrastructures have experienced cyber attacks, some of which have disrupted services. While losses have been small relative to UK banks’ operational risk capital requirements, they have revealed vulnerabilities.

"If these vulnerabilities were exploited to disrupt services, then the cost to the financial system could be significant and borne by a large number of institutions."

The Bank added that a programme has begun to assess the risk involved and design more effective defence mechanisms to help reduce the system's vulnerability to attack.

Companies whose own systems will contain financial data may also be targets for cyber criminals, so it may be wise for firms to have their information stored remotely in data centres that can make use of the latest and best intelligence on how to tackle the threats.

News that UK banks have been targeted may come as little surprise. After all, cybercriminals have been at work since the advent of the internet in trying to gain access to data.

Phishing is an obvious example of this, with emails sent randomly to individuals claiming to be from their banks asking them to email back with their log on details. Most people became wise to these attacks, but cyber criminals have moved on to more sophisticated techniques.

A report by business consultancy KPMG published last month claimed that the next financial crisis will be caused by cyber crime, rather than the risky practices that led to the 2007-08 credit crunch.

It predicted that many of these attacks would come not from criminals trying to steal money, but ideological enemies trying to weaken the west by inflicting economic damage.

Storetec News/Blogs."http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/uk-banks-targeted-in-cyber-attacks". UK banks targeted in cyber

attacks. November 29, 2013. Storetec.