Consumer Trust Continues To Concern Financial Services

Trust is the basis for any relationship – and it is table stakes for every bank and financial services organization worldwide. However, the Unisys Security Index™ reveals that consumers have substantial trust issues in areas that reside at the core of banking and finance: 68 percent of consumers are seriously concerned about identity theft and 66 percent are seriously concerned about bankcard fraud.

These concerns are valid. In 2018, hackers successfully snatched data from 135 banking/credit/financial organizations, exposing over 1.7 million records.¹ To prevent future data breaches, financial institutions need to take proactive measures to address three major attack vectors:

1. Insider threats. A full 34 percent of cyberattacks are perpetrated by internal actors. Some of these attacks are malicious in nature while others are completely accidental, such as an employee clicking on a link in a phishing email.
2. Password vulnerabilities. Security professionals have recognized for years that passwords are a flawed approach to security: they can be guessed, phished and stolen with ease by hackers. Once a password is hacked, attackers can move swiftly across internal systems to obtain the data they desire.
3. Open banking. With exposure to open APIs, banks now have to make significant changes to their architecture. At the very least, banks need to protect the API with stringent security measures. Customers will want to know that their data is kept securely as the banks open up their infrastructure to the public.

Learn more by reading 2019 Unisys Security Index™ Calls Financial Services to Action to Ensure Consumer Trust today.

¹ Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), “2018 End-of-Year Data Breach Report.”
² Verizon, “2019 Data Breach Investigations Report.”

Tags-   Banks Customer Trust Data Breaches Identity theft Insider threats Open APIs Open Banking Security Unisys Security Index

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