FRISCO, Texas — Netwrix released findings for the financial and banking sector from its global 2022 Cloud Security Report. 

Compared to other industries surveyed, financial institutions are much more concerned about users who have legitimate access to their cloud infrastructure. Indeed, 44% of respondents in this sector say their own IT staff poses the biggest risk to data security in the cloud and 47% worry about contractors and partners, compared to 30% and 36% respectively in other verticals surveyed.

“Financial organizations experience accidental data leakage more often than companies in other verticals — 32% of them reported this type of security incident within the last 12 months, compared to the average of 25%,” said Dirk Schrader, vice president of security research at Netwrix. “This is a good reason for them to be concerned about users who might unintentionally expose sensitive information. To address this threat, organizations need to implement a zero-standing privilege approach in which elevated access rights are granted only when they are needed and only for as long as needed. Cloud misconfigurations are another common reason for accidental data leakage. Therefore, security teams must continually monitor the integrity of their cloud configurations, ideally with a dedicated solution that automates the process.” 

All sectors say phishing is the most common type of attack they experience. However, 91% of financial institutions say they can spot phishing within minutes or hours, compared to 82% of respondents in other verticals. 

“Even though financial organizations detect phishing quickly, it is still crucial for them to keep educating their personnel on this threat because attacks are becoming more sophisticated,” Schrader said. “To increase the likelihood of a user clicking a malicious link, attackers are crafting custom spear phishing messages that are directed at the person responsible for a certain task in the organization and that appear to come from an authority figure. Regular staff training, along with continuous activity monitoring, will help reduce the risk of infiltration.”