Financial Services Still A Prime Target
Despite spending many millions of pounds on security, financial services organizations continue to be one of the top targets for cybercriminals, with cyber-incident reports from the UK finance sector increasing by 1,000% in 2018. The access to the vast amounts of money that the financial industry trades and controls, along with the sensitive personal information they store, continues to make them a prime target. Whilst digital transformation is offering many advantages in driving business forward, it also provides more opportunities for attackers. As well as the increase in number of attacks, the attacks themselves are becoming more complex and targeted. It is only a matter of time before attackers make their way into an organization’s network, so financial organizations must therefore assume they will be attacked and prepare accordingly.
Lack of Next-Generation Endpoint Security
Hacking, backdoor attacks and malware, are some of the most common reasons for financial breaches. The financial organization that lack advanced endpoint security, or just have solutions that rely on indicators of compromise or signatures (which attackers can easily evade) may not have an adequate level of security and could be in danger from these attacks.
How can Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) help?
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) can provide real-time detection, identification and response to threats:
- Signature-less attacks: unlike conventional solutions like AV, EDR uses AI, machine learning, and behavioral analysis, to detect suspicious behaviors.
- File-less attacks: evasive attacks often leverage whitelisted Windows applications to create damage, in a completely file-less fashion so EDR solutions analyze behaviors instead of evaluating files.
- Low and slow attacks: EDR solutions aggregate endpoint data and continually analyze it, correlating suspicious individual activities, to then identify a multi-stage attack. This means they can detect “low and slow” attacks which often go undetected.
Not forgetting Compliance
Regulatory compliance is critical for all financial services organizations, and the right EDR can help you meet compliance requirements and supports several key financial compliance mandates including:
- PCI DSS v3.2
- NIST SP 800-53 Rev 4
- FFIEC
Read more on the first cloud-native endpoint protection platform or contact us or call us on 0845 625 9025 to discuss your EDR requirements.