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"For cyber criminals, British banks are without doubt becoming the crème de la crème of targets," states Ross Brewer, vice president and managing director for international markets at LogRhythm. "Home to such valuable confidential data, banks are facing continuous, persistent attacks from outsiders, which puts huge amounts of pressure on them to have the strongest defences in place - a difficult task when faced with a constantly evolving threat landscape. Following hot on the heels of Waking Shark II, it's encouraging to see the banks continue to take proactive steps to protect both their own and their customers' data - even if the involvement of hackers may raise some questions.

CLEVER AND RUTHLESS
"As they play such a critical role in society, it would be disastrous for one of our leading banks to suffer a significant data breach," added Brewer. "We only have to look at recent large-scale data breaches, such as Target in the US, to see just how devastating and long-lasting this can be. Given the level of trust businesses and consumers place in banks, a successful attack on a financial firm would be even worse."

Brewer applauds the positive step that financial sector is taking here, which many other organisations need to learn from, he says. "Indeed, far too many still rely on traditional, static security solutions that are unable to keep up with changing cyber criminal tactics. Businesses simply cannot underestimate today's cyber criminals - they are clever and ruthless in their approach.

"The only way to ensure businesses have the best possible chance of keeping today's sophisticated threats out is through the continuous monitoring of all network activity. There's no doubt that any business that chooses to overlook this will end up paying the price - for both themselves and their customers."

BIGGER PICTURE
While also welcoming the Bank of England's new round of cyber resiliency tests for UK banks to ensure they can protect themselves against the growing cyber threat, banks need to look at the bigger picture and have a strong security culture in place to deal with the increasing number of cyber attacks, cautions Marc Lee, director EMEA at Courion.

"Looking at individual bank security systems is a good idea for phase two of these cyber war games," he says. "Banks' infrastructure is increasingly under attack and that's not going to change. However, the focus shouldn't be solely on detecting and preventing external attacks. It's important to recognise that threats can often stem from insider hacktivists or a weak security culture in the back office, which leaves sensitive data and apps open to abuse or theft.

"Looking at the bigger security picture, the majority of serious data breaches use stolen or misused legitimate access privileges. Banks need strong, reliable systems in place to quickly identify any security vulnerabilities and take appropriate actions to prevent a breach and avoid financial and reputational damage."

PRIME TARGETS
Ashish Patel, regional director, network security UKI at McAfee, part of Intel Security, sums up what he believes the Bank of England's new strategy means for the nation's security. "In the event of all-out cyberwarfare, private sector institutions would be the prime target. While traditional physical war is fought between armies, cyberwar is waged against society, hitting critical infrastructure, such as national banks to cause maximum damage. As such, the Bank of England's 'ethical hacking' initiative is a step in the right direction for national security.

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