Fights against land and life, economic sanctions and trade restrictions are threatening cyber risks that Europe has to deal with in these times. Another danger are targeted cyber attacks by states that see their own interests or those of countries united in solidarity at risk.
Finance is considered one of the most vulnerable sectors of critical infrastructure - despite strong legal regulations. Producers and operators as well as suppliers of critical infrastructure have become the target of attacks more often than average in the past twelve months. In about half of the cases, it was economic cycles, human life and ultimately ours social functioning in Europe is at risk. One thing seems certain: the cases will not decrease.
The sectors most frequently affected by KRITIS in Germany are energy and water management, telecommunications and finance. In doing so, financial service providers point out compared to others KRITIS industries have above-average deficiencies in the area of technical information security. The reasons for this lie in the advanced level of digitization in this sector. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are particularly typical and, in the worst case, are flanked by ransomware attacks. Six-digit ransom sums are not uncommon - if payment is made, then in Bitcoin.
Managed security service or your own security control center?
Digitization and ensuring business continuity have become very important in the financial sector. Cyber security has now become a decisive criterion for the further development of financial services at board level.
Managed security service providers can make an important contribution to business continuity in the financial sector. In financial companies that cannot (yet) implement their own security control center, a Cyber Defense Center (CDC) – also known as a Security Operations Center (SOC) – can be commissioned. According to a recent Lünendonk study on cyber security in the financial sector 24 percent of customers in the German financial sector already rely on these security services. The solutions for IT monitoring and a risk & security cockpit are operationalized and provided directly on site at the customer. The customer's data never leaves the company's environment as part of the service provision.
Analysis of millions of security-critical incidents
Furthermore, annual analyzes of millions of security-critical incidents - as well as personal exchanges with customers in the security departments - enable CDC providers to get a reliable picture of the threat landscape. Each individual customer also benefits from the use case collections that have been built up. The more financial service providers rely on a provider's managed security services, the more their technology with monitoring and correlation functions grows. Leading providers of self-developed European security technology also ensure the highest data protection standards.
Currently, around 14 percent of organizations in the financial sector already operate their own cyber defense centers. The trend towards setting up their own security control center for companies in this sector is expected to double in the next five years.
Financial sector as a worthwhile target
The flood of cyber attacks on critical infrastructures, especially in the financial sector, will continue to intensify in the future. Therefore, those organizations that invest heavily in early detection of cyber threats will be best protected from the far-reaching consequences, such as financial loss and reputational damage.
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About Radar Cyber Security Radar Cyber Security operates one of the largest cyber defense centers in Europe in the heart of Vienna based on the proprietary Cyber Detection Platform technology. Driven by the strong combination of human expertise and experience, paired with the latest technological developments from ten years of research and development work, the company combines comprehensive solutions for the challenges related to IT and OT security in its products RADAR Services and RADAR Solutions .