EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.—Almost two-thirds (65%) of large financial services companies have suffered a cyber-attack in the past year, while 45% have experienced a rise in attack attempts since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report reveals.
The study from HelpSystems surveyed 250 CISOs and CIOs in global financial services firms about the impact of the pandemic on their cybersecurity.
The report highlighted these organizations are taking cybersecurity increasingly seriously, with 92% stating that they have increased investment in this area over the past 12 months, with 26% doing so by a significant amount.
“The main targets of this investment have included secure file transfer (64%), protecting the remote workforce (63%) and cloud/office365 (56%),” stated Info Security in its analysis.
The shift to home working as a result of COVID-19 has meant securing home workstations has become a key objective for 42% of financial services companies, and 47% of respondents said they have grown investment in secure collaboration tools.
Quick Reaction
Approximately one-third of the security leaders have also quickly reacted to update regulatory best practices since the start of the crisis, while nearly half (46%) had re-evaluated their cybersecurity training and policies to account for the rise in home working.
In addition, almost half felt that the pandemic accelerated changes already in the pipeline, including moving to Office 365, while 43% saw digital transformation as the biggest challenge facing companies in the financial services industry right now.