Study: Cyberattacks costing banks millions

The cost to a person in having their identity or other personal information stolen can be huge, but humans aren't the only targets for cyberthreats. New data out from Kaspersky Lab finds attacks aimed at banks can cost the institutions $1.7 million.

by Kristina Knight

Malware incidents for banks are less costly, at less than $900,000, but in both cases these attacks are quite harmful. According to the Kaspersky report 61% of attacks aimed at financial institutions' online banking have additional affects: leaked customer information, loss of reputation, and data loss are chief among them.

"In the banking sector reputation is everything, and security goes hand-in-hand with this," said Kirill Ilganaev, head of Kaspersky DDoS protection, Kaspersky Lab. "If a bank's online services come under attack, it is very difficult for customers to trust that bank with their money, so it's easy to see why an attack could be so crippling. If banks are to protect themselves effectively from the price tag of an online banking cybersecurity incident, they first need to become more prepared for the dangers DDoS attacks pose to their online banking services. This threat should be featuring higher on banks' security priorities."

Researchers also point out that nearly half (49%) of banks which have suffered DDoS attacks also had their websites compromised in some way.