It’s no secret that the cybersecurity industry thrives on security predictions and solutions. They are an attempt at forecasting what you can expect in the future by analysing the data that’s available now.
This is true across every industry and business. Especially for financial services, security predictions can be the make-or-break factor that ensures profits or leads to losses.
Cybercriminals target financial institutions because of monetary benefits. Like most fraud or theft that occurs, data theft is more profitable when it’s connected with actual money. This is what makes your bank or financial firm a prime target for security breaches.
There’s so much at risk when banks or financial institutions are targeted by cybercriminals. Unlike the security breaches that threaten other industries, risks against online banking cybersecurity can cripple many aspects of your organisation.
Going beyond template industry security standards in 2021, therefore, is crucial.
So, what are the online banking cybersecurity predictions and solutions that can safeguard your work against evolving cyber threats? How do these solutions help you and your customers stay ahead of cybercriminals?
Let’s take a look.
Modernise your organisation by making it digital-first
The pandemic was a great reminder to the banking sector of the importance of having a digital-first business model. Last year, many financial firms and banks accelerated their digital transformation to meet consumer needs that changed during the pandemic.
With a quarter of the 15 billion credentials compromised relating to accounts for banking and other financial services, it’s no surprise if your customers aren’t confident about the security of their data.
As a first step, make sure you’re integrating cloud-based platforms and security solutions that support back-end infrastructure. This will support increased agility and faster response rates for changing customer needs and security threats.
Evaluate and reinvent your customer journey
One aspect of online banking that is highly targeted for fraud is the process of new account registration. A study revealed that 65% of respondents believed new account fraud to be a bigger threat for banks when compared with traditional identity theft.
This is why it’s critical to evaluate and reinvent the customer journey to provide security that is balanced against the user experience. Customers require protection from cyber attacks but not at the expense of going through an inconvenient authentication process.
Your online banking cybersecurity structure should embrace adaptive authentication processes. These ensure that your customers are prompted in the authentication process only if risks are detected.
Secure your mobile platform
Mobile banking platforms allow financial service providers to consolidate and manage customers in a central way. It also provides banks with more control to secure customer accounts compared to website access.
It is also, however, an easy pathway for cybercriminals to gain access to data. This means that you need to allocate more resources to securing your mobile platform without delay.
Here, technologies like mobile application shielding with run-time protection are useful in securing apps on the client-side. You can also make use of mobile application penetration testing to uncover gaps in your app through ethical hacking.
Leverage AI to identify cyber risks patterns
Today, cybercriminals are not shying away from using AI to roll out cyber attacks. The silver lining, here, is that it means that it's possible to detect some sort of pattern in the cyber threat landscape. AI can be highly beneficial in detecting these kinds of attacks, more quickly than humans, too.
Machine learning can help you make predictions from the gathered data. This allows you to identify patterns of behaviour, analyse associations between malicious activity, predict future movements, and detect or prevent these threats.
Make your online banking cybersecurity strategy the cornerstone of your success
At a time where customers prefer the ease and convenience of online banking facilities, financial institutions are working hard to transform their digital services while providing better security and better customer experiences.
This kind of effort requires coordination, collaboration, and the adoption of new technologies. If you want to embed security into your digital services, make sure you’re future-proofing your efforts. This is how you protect your customers and defend your operations against evolving cyber threats.
