Almost half (45 per cent) of financial services firms across Europe are struggling to combat the rising cyber security threat, with hackers particularly exploiting internal loopholes through Business Process Compromise (BPC).

A survey of more than 1,000 IT decision-makers in Europe by cyber security firm Trend Micro found that 61 per cent of decision makers felt the overall volume of threats have increased over the last year, with two fifths (43 per cent) saying that BPC attacks are a major threat.

These occur when attackers look for loopholes in business processes, vulnerable systems and susceptible practices. Once a weakness has been identified, a part of the process is altered to benefit the attacker, without the enterprise or its client detecting the change.

A total of 66 per cent saw BPC as a key threat to their organisation, while more than half (51 per cent) agreed that there is a lack of awareness of the threat amongst those in leadership roles.

However, despite a recognition of cyber security measures being crucial to maintaining key business functions amongst those asked, a third said they struggled to manage threats within the scope of their current budget.

Bharat Mistry, principal security strategist at Trend Micro, said: “Data protection has never been more important, but the financial services industry in particular is facing significant challenges as it adjusts to new regulations such as GDPR and PSD2.

“The sector is already a highly pressurised environment, when combined with highly sophisticated cyber attacks at increasing scale and volume, IT teams certainly have their work cut out,” he concluded.

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