Cyber security companies provide a “cyber-alerting” service, manually deep-monitor the Darknet cyber-space and forums, providing Financial Institutions with warning and prevention of Cyber-attacks.
Financial institutions are under continuous cyber-attacks, banks, insurance companies, credit card providers and more. The cyber-attacks aim at the FIs, and their customers. Most attacks are being carried out by hackers – criminals and bored hackers looking for the “holy grail” of cyber-attacks.
According to a report issued by ZDNet, attacks against banks were up a staggering 1,318% from 2020 to 2021. The average loss to a financial services company in the event of a ransomware attack is estimated at $18.9M USD. It is the 2nd highest cost of a data breach per industry.
Most cyber-attacks share the same characteristic of attack, built of an attack vector that usually begins in the darknet. Hackers seek the darknet and the “high profile” groups to buy the “entry point” to the FI – a leaked user and password or a way in via a known vulnerability. Once penetrated – they browse the FI’s IT environment till they find what they are looking for – data theft, ransomware attack, denial of service and more.
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For the FI, the damage is significant. Prestige, customer’s dissatisfaction, and fear, resulting in direct financial lost.
Most credentials leaks (Username, passwords) origin from employee’s errors. Not being careful enough and doing “innocent” mistakes that eventually cost a lot.
Global cybersecurity spending in industrial critical infrastructure sectors such as energy, transport, and water and waste management is projected to hit $23 billion by the end of the year, according to a report by ABI Research. Spending is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10% to reach $36.67 billion by 2027. In the financial sector, for example, only UK banks sped 6.7 billion pounds per annum! (Report by OCORIAN).
Understanding this magnitude and the attack vectors, banks and other FIs utilize OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) systems and other technology means to provide cyber-intelligence and to prevent or stop the attack in its initial stage, when it is cheap and before causing any damages. Problem is, in the darknet most of these systems and technologies are not effective.
i-AML and other companies, provide Financial Institutions with service of monitoring the darknet groups, manually, in order to alert and prevent the attacks. By being aware of the leak or vulnerability – an alert can make the IT admin of the FI shut-down the hacker’s access in a very and simple action, buy the item off the market is a low price, and alert there is somebody looking to buy and targeting the specific institution.
