LONDON: After workers began working from home, financial businesses may need to beef up their defenses in the face of rocketing cyber attacks, according to the Financial Stability Board (FSB). Since economies went into lockdown to battle COVID-19, the FSB, which coordinates financial rules for the G20 group of nations, claimed remote working has opened up new opportunities for cyber attacks. Working from home (WFH) is predicted to remain popular in the financial services industry and beyond.
In a report to G20 ministers and central banks, the FSB stated, “Most cyber frameworks did not envision a scenario of near-universal remote working and the exploitation of such a circumstance by cyber threat actors.”
The paper is a first look at the financial stability lessons learnt from the pandemic.
COVID-19 was the first significant test of tighter financial laws enacted in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008, and most components of the system performed admirably, according to the FSB.
Although lockdown limitations are loosening, financial institutions have assured staff that they will be permitted to work from home several days a week on a permanent basis, with the majority of their time spent in the office.
Phishing, malware, and ransomware attacks increased from less than 5,000 per week in February 2020 to more than 200,000 per week in late April 2021, according to the FSB.
“Financial institutions have proven resilient in general,” the FSB noted, “but they may need to consider improvements to cyber risk management processes, cyber event reporting, response, and recovery operations, as well as management of essential third-party service providers, such as cloud services.”
The Financial Stability Board, which is chaired by Federal Reserve Vice Chair Randal Quarles and consists of regulators and central banks from major financial centers, will provide a final report in October outlining its next moves.
It has previously offered recommendations for improving the resilience of money market funds that were subjected to significant stress during last year’s market upheaval.
FSB WFH Graphic – https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/qzjpqxlknvx/FSBWFHper cent20Graphic.PNG https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/qzjpqxlknvx/FSBWFHper cent20Graphic.PNG
(Huw Jones contributed reporting, and Catherine Evans edited the piece.)/n
