According to a new Akamai report published by IDC (News - Alert), titled “New Threats Demand Innovative Responses,” application delivery firm Akamai warns financial institutions about the digital channels they’re increasingly launching “without a sufficient IT strategy behind them,” leaving them vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Banks that pay attention to the fact that more and more customers want mobile banking operations: good. Banks that offer mobile products without having done their homework: bad. The sort of Very Bad Thing that could put people off the whole idea of mobile banking for a long time.
Online industry journal V3.co.uk recently noted that while it’s good that financial institutions such as banks to try to offer more products and services to online and mobile customers, increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals are lurking, prowling for banks that don’t have sufficient security in place.
Akamai's (News - Alert) Chief Strategist for Financial Services Rich Bolstridge told V3 that having invested in the front-end of online and mobile banking, “institutions need to review how they protect themselves and their customers from the ever-present threat of fraudulent activity posed by increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks and, perhaps most significantly, from a proliferation of mobile malware."
V3 notes that mobile malware “has rocketed” in recent months, and is shaping up to be one of the biggest problems facing users and administrators in 2012, with Trojans such as Zeus and SpyEye “causing increasing problems for financial institutions and customers.”
As TMCnet recently reported, the gap between banks’ online security and the creativity of online criminals “is creating significant operational and security risks for online and mobile services, according to IDC, which called it “the unintentional result of business decision-makers within financial services organizations lobbying for new and enhanced digital services, even with obvious resistance from IT departments that are fearful of the growing security threat from mobile malware.”
Bolstridge told V3 that "IT managers want to invest in security, but they are constrained by a lack of budget. Management teams feel they are faced with a brick wall in the form of IT colleagues who are seemingly reluctant to support the push for new digital channels.”
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.
Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.Edited by Rich Steeves
›