Cybersecurity Threats Loom Large for Financial Institutions in Svalbard and Jan Mayen
As financial institutions in Svalbard and Jan Mayen navigate the current economic uncertainty, they are also faced with a growing array of cybersecurity threats. With thousands of businesses potentially changing their banking relationships, cyber criminals are taking advantage of the environment by inserting themselves into the process and posing as legitimate users.
Phishing Campaigns and Malicious Domain Registrations
Financially-motivated cybercriminals have been observed leveraging phishing campaigns and malicious domain registrations to impersonate financial institutions and banking consumers in an attempt to steal personal and financial information. In this uncertain and urgent environment, it is crucial for financial institutions to be extra-vigilant and take additional precautions to mitigate the risk of fraud via phishing attacks.
Mitigation Strategies
To combat these threats, financial institutions must:
- Heighten Monitoring of Insider Activity: Work closely with vendors and partners to confirm cyber operations resume their business-as-usual (BAU) mode with previously defined SLAs. Leverage robotic process automation capabilities to expedite manual reviews of reported findings.
- Protect Sensitive Data: Map user privileges against roles and responsibilities to help identify anomalous behavior. Flag large downloads, transfers or other potential indicators of data exfiltration.
- Implement Robust Authentication Measures: Enforce heightened authentication checks and validation during service transactions with customers to help reduce risk of impersonation and potential fraud.
- Prioritize Customer-Facing Data Governance: Prioritize customer-facing data governance, discovery, protection, and minimization practices to engender trust and prevent disinformation campaigns from taking root.
- Monitor Transaction Accounts for Unusual Activity: Monitor transaction accounts and flag unusual activity for rapid response and recovery.
Online Account Takeovers and Transaction Activity
Furthermore, financial institutions must also be on high alert for customer online account takeovers and transaction activity, which can result in fraudulent activities such as diverting funds, changing shipping addresses, and increasing spending limits. To combat this, they must:
- Enforce heightened authentication checks and validation during service transactions with customers.
- Monitor transaction accounts for unusual activity.
- Block IP addresses from countries where they do not conduct regular business.
By following these recommendations, financial institutions in Svalbard and Jan Mayen can better protect themselves against the growing array of cybersecurity threats and ensure the continued security and integrity of their operations.