Question

Wrire 300 words. How has cybercrime affected financial security of consumers?

Answer 1

The financial sector is like the perfect package for a hacker. Bank and other financial institutions contain information that spans everything a cybercriminal wants all wrapped up in one place; from your financial details and bank account, to identity data.

Security attacks are perpetrated using several methods. Phishing is still a major issue for the financial sector as it has been now for many years. It start with phishing email. The email contained a piece of malware that stole login credentials once installed. The fact that access to bank accounts can be potentially compromised from an email shows how integrated banking is in all of our lives. A new variant of this is the targeting of personal accounts that use mobile banking. For instance, an Android-based malware spots what bank a user is navigating to from their smart phone, and overlays a spoof page that looks identical to the mobile banking page. It then steals the credentials used to access the site, which the hacker can then use to access the real mobile banking account.

In a recent Financial Sector Cyber Intelligence Group identified APT threat, spear phishing was the way in for the APT actor. The first step in this type of attack is to implant a Command and Control center (C&C) so that hackers could add further malware to the compromised system. A C&C is like the hacker having their finger right inside the pie - they can control malware and update it remotely. APT’s are notoriously difficult to detect as they morph (via the C&C) when any hint of possible detection is observed.

Financial sector attacks are not just about direct access to money anymore. They are also about identity theft and breaching data.

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