Sentinel Banking I: The Most Menacing Threats Facing Your Internet Banking?System

Banks remain some of the biggest targets for cyberattacks due to the enormous amount of sensitive customer data that they hold and the potential financial gain these attackers stand to get should an attack be successful.

Now that banks are increasingly migrating their services to the internet to serve their customers better, they need to be proactive in securing their internet banking systems.

The battle begins with understanding what sort of threats exist and how to guard against them. Let’s delve into some of these threats, including practical ways that banks can protect themselves against them.

First, why should you?care?

1. After a data breach, it could be difficult for customers to trust your banking service. Data breaches may easily lead to your customer base moving their business elsewhere.
2. Most of the time, when a bank’s data is compromised, you lose time and a ton of money. The recovery process is usually unpleasant and time-consuming.
3. Banks need to be more cautious than most other institutions. That is the price to pay to retain the sort of valuable personal data your bank does.

Dangers facing internet?banking

Much of a bank’s operations require the use of technology and the internet. On another hand, hackers have risen to the occasion by improving their technology and expertise, so without strict security measures in place, your bank’s sensitive data could be at risk. Here are the threats that can compromise your internet banking system:

1. Phishing?attacks

In phishing attacks, hackers contact bank customers through emails, phone calls, or SMS pretending to be representatives of the bank with the aim of tricking them into downloading malware or giving away their login credentials and debit card information, among other sensitive data. This kind of attack tends to be highly successful since everything appears legitimate and credible, which makes it difficult to detect.

Phishing attacks can be used to enter a bank’s network and conduct a more severe attack like Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), which can have a disastrous effect on the institution. In an APT, an unauthorized user can access the system and use it while going unnoticed for a long time. Such an attack may result in significant financial, data, and reputational losses to the bank.

Bank employees are also at risk of phishing. Attackers may send emails disguised as official correspondence to a bank’s employees, which can prove effective in stealing financial information. Employees must be on the lookout for phishing that requires their login credentials to access information.

Banking service providers can protect against phishing attacks by investing in educating their customers and employees on good digital practices. Using customer behavior profiles to detect unusual behavior and implementing multi-factor authentication would go a long way in protecting customers.

2. Malware

Malware attacks involve malicious software injected into devices, servers, or networks. Malware can come in the form of worms, viruses, spyware, Trojans, ransomware, and more. If a customer’s device is infected with malware, it poses a threat to a bank’s digital network if it is used to connect to the network.

Trojans

The term “Trojan” refers to several tactics hackers use to cheat their way into secure data. Until it is installed on a computer, a Trojan looks like trustworthy software. However, it is a malicious computer application created to access private data processed or kept by online banking systems. This kind of computer program has a backdoor that enables access to a computer from the outside.

Ransomware

Ransomware encrypts important data and prevents owners from accessing it until they pay a high cost or ransom.

Protecting internet banking systems from malware starts with blocking these attacks using reliable antiviruses and runtime application self-protection (RASP) solutions. Additionally, implementing multi-factor authentication and behavioral authentication protects the users even if the attacker manages to steal the credentials. Moreover, creating awareness among users and educating them on digital banking best practices can be very effective.

3. Spoofing

In a spoofing attack, hackers impersonate a banking website’s URL with a clone website that looks and functions exactly the same. When a user enters his or her login information, that information is then stolen by hackers to be used later. New spoofing techniques do not only use a slightly different but similar URL, they are in fact able to target users who visited the correct URL.

This tactic bets on the likelihood that people will not look closely if a website appears to be legitimate.

Spoofing attacks are difficult to prevent, but banks can prevent scammers from accessing their customers’ accounts by implementing a multi-factor authentication where information only known to the customer is required to access the account.

4. Unencrypted data

Unencrypted data refers to data stored in the banks’ computers but left unencrypted and therefore vulnerable to theft. All data stored on computers within your bank and online network should be encrypted. Even if your data is stolen by hackers, it cannot be immediately used by them if it’s encrypted. If left unencrypted, hackers can use the data right away, creating serious problems for your bank.

5. Insecure third-party services

Banks employ the services of third-party vendors in a bid to serve the customers better. Unfortunately, if the vendors involved lack strong security frameworks, an attack on their systems can wreak havoc on the banks’ internet banking systems. What can banks do to protect themselves against this threat?

Conduct due diligence to ensure that third-party vendors meet the standards needed to provide their services without risking the bank’s system. Additionally, banks should conduct third-party risk assessments on a regular basis, especially whenever there are changes to the bank’s infrastructure. It’s important to ensure that the vendors’ cybersecurity measures align with the bank’s.

6. Remote work-associated risks

Employees of a banking institution who are working from home, workspaces, or elsewhere may lack the protection of the office’s physical cybersecurity defenses and this can complicate the bank’s ability to keep internal software safe, and customer-sensitive data out of malicious hands.

For internet banking service providers, this means increased vulnerability on customer-sensitive data. Training employees on what to look for and how to stay safe while in their remote work environment can prevent the possibility of data breaches. This can include using VPNs, being vigilant of phishing attacks, not sharing their work devices with others, and more.

7. Customer behaviors

The biggest threat to an internet banking system’s security is human error. It is people who ultimately put data and systems at risk either because they have been tricked into providing sensitive information, haven’t properly protected their passwords, used weak login credentials, clicked on malicious links, or opened suspicious email attachments.

Using well-designed mobile apps with a streamlined user experience and built-in security functions, and educating customers on secure internet practices can help mitigate some of the risks of customer errors. A better-informed user might utilize the fingerprint scanner on their phone or another multi-factor authentication method to access their account instead.

Solutions for secure internet?banking

As financial transactions increasingly move online, cyberattacks will continue to rise. Digital banking service providers have a task to continue providing the best services while protecting their customers from malicious attacks. There are three broad solutions that banks need to consider.

Personal protection of?users

Keeping individual users secure is very difficult as you have very little control over their behavior. As a banking institution, the most you can typically do is impose strict security requirements and controls on your web portal. This includes controls like requiring strong passwords and implementing multi-factor authentication.

Technical protection

Here is where you have a higher degree of control — the security measures you build into your web portals and applications. Using monitoring and blocking technologies that protect from threats like client-side JavaScript injection will help ensure that users aren’t experiencing auto-redirect attacks or having their login data skimmed.

Internal team and data protection

With much of your team accessing your network remotely, the security of each endpoint you allow into your centralized protected network is extremely important. Making sure you have every device across your network protected, usually with a VPN solution, and ensuring your staff can remotely connect through the most secure methods available are crucial.