How to make Banking Institutions cyber secure?
A wonderful way to express your worry about an organization’s cybersecurity is through security ratings. But, you must also show that you are adhering to industry and legal best practices for IT security and basing your choices on the long term. Having a cybersecurity framework could be useful. You can enroll in an ethical hacking course to expand your education.
Top Cybersecurity Framework for Banks
For security leaders across nations and businesses, a cybersecurity framework offers a common language and set of standards that allow them to comprehend their own security postures and those of their providers. Having a framework makes it simpler to specify the steps your firm must take to evaluate, track, and reduce cybersecurity risk.
Let’s examine some prevalent frameworks for financial cybersecurity:
1. NIST India Cybersecurity Framework
Enhancing Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, an executive order issued by the former Indian president, called for greater collaboration between the public and commercial sectors in order to identify, assess, and manage cyber risk. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework was developed in response. NIST has established itself as the industry benchmark for assessing cybersecurity readiness, identifying security flaws, and upholding cybersecurity regulations even when compliance is optional.
2. The Bank of England’s CBEST Vulnerability Testing Framework
The Council for Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST) and Digital Shadows worked with the UK Financial Authorities to establish the CBEST vulnerability testing methodology. It is a testing framework driven by intelligence. The official launch of CBEST occurred on June 10, 2013.
CBEST uses information from reliable government and commercial sources to identify potential attackers for a certain financial institution. It then mimics these possible attackers’ techniques to determine whether they can effectively get past the institution’s defenses. This makes it possible for a business to locate the areas of its system that are weak and to develop and carry out corrective action plans.
3. Cybersecurity and Privacy Framework for Privately Held Information Systems (the CIPHER Framework)
PHISs are the names given to computer systems that are under the jurisdiction of both public and private organizations and that house personal data collected from its clients (Privately Held Information Systems).
The CIPHER framework addresses digital information types, electronic systems, and techniques for data sharing, processing, and maintenance (not paper documents).
The main objective of the CIPHER methodological framework is to offer guidelines and best practices for safeguarding privately held information systems online (PHIS). The primary characteristics of the CIPHER methodological framework are as follows:
- Technology independence (versatility) refers to the ability to be used by any organization functioning in any field, even as existing technologies deteriorate or are replaced by newer ones.
- PHIS owners, developers, and citizens are the three primary users who focus on this user-centric approach.
- Practicality – outlines possible precautions and controls to improve or verify whether the organization is safeguarding data from online dangers.
- It is simple to use and doesn’t require specialized knowledge from businesses or individuals.
Challenges in Implementing Cybersecurity in Banking
Digital cybersecurity in banking has been significantly hampered by a few contributing factors. Some of these are as follows:
1. Lack of Information
The general public’s awareness of cybersecurity has remained low, and few companies have made major investments to increase it.
2. Insufficient funding and poor management
Cybersecurity typically suffers budgetary short shrift due to its low importance. Top management continues to pay little attention to cybersecurity, and programs that help it are given low priority. The reason being that they might have undervalued how serious these hazards are.
3. Access and Identities are Poorly Maintained.
Identity and access management has always been a key element of cybersecurity, especially in the current climate where hackers are in charge and might get access to a company network with just one compromised login. Even though this region has made a little progress, much more work has to be done.
4. Growing Ransomware
Our attention has been drawn to the growing threat of ransomware as a result of recent computer attacks. Cybercriminals are starting to use a variety of strategies to evade detection by endpoint protection software that focuses on executable files.
5. Mobile devices and apps
Nowadays, the majority of banking institutions largely use mobile devices for business. The base expands daily, making it the finest choice for exploiters. Mobile phones have become a more appealing target for hackers as a result of the rise in mobile phone transactions.
6. Social media
As a result of the widespread use of social media, hackers have intensified their exploitation. Less savvy customers disclose their data to the public, which the attackers then use.
Hence, cyber security is a concern for all organizations. In particular for organizations that hold a lot of personal data and transaction lists, it is critical for banks to have the appropriate cyber security solutions and policies in place. Banking cyber security is a problem that cannot be resolved through negotiation. As digitization develops, hackers are more likely to target the banking industry.