Financial Services Targeted By Hackers, Again

Out of more than six billion analyzed attacks in 2014, finance represents the No. 1 targeted sector of malicious cyber attacks, according to new report from NTT Group. NTT Group’s Global Threat Intelligence Report reveals the evolving threat landscape and the quantifiable shifts since last year.

Some key findings include:

– Finance continues to represent the No. 1 targeted sector with 18 percent of all detected attacks. The long-term trend of targeted attacks against the finance sector continues; most incident response engagements supporting the finance sector were directly related to wire fraud, phishing and spear-phishing attacks.

– Most payloads in exploit kit attacks are banking Trojans, ransomware or botnet applications.

– Hacktivist group likely targeting U.S. banks with a Distributed Denial of Service attack using botnets in Java vulnerability. Based on infection profiles, banks can expect the attacks to originate from Asian source IP addresses.

“Banks continue to be attractive targets for cyber criminals. Financial institutions need to protect their assets – and their customers’ – through practical fundamentals including mature patch management processes, incident response procedures, endpoint protection controls, and proper training to detect phishing attacks or malware. Attacks don’t need to be advanced to succeed in the financial sector,” stated Chris Camejo, director of assessment services for NTT Com Security US.