Phishing attacks are the most common cause of cloud security incidents for financial services organisations, accounting for 26 per cent of instances.

Other common causes of cloud security incidents included targeted attacks on cloud infrastructure, which caused 22 per cent, and ransomware which caused 15 per cent according to data security vendor Netwrix’s latest report.

Netrix also said that among financial sector organisations that experienced a data breach, 20 per cent had to cover unplanned expenses to fix security gaps, 19 per cent faced compliance fines, and 17 per cent experienced customer churn.

The Netwrix report also covered the reasons why financial sector organisations are struggling to secure data in the cloud.

Well over half - 59 per cent - of financial services organisations surveyed said they consider understaffed IT and security teams to be the major reason they struggle, while 44 per cent consider lack of expertise in cloud security to be the primary cause and 37 per cent said employee negligence.

The survey went on to say that 53 per cent of financial services organisations store customer data in the cloud, while 35 per cent store financial data there

Netrix’s research also covered how long incidents took financial services organisations to fix and said 41 per cent of organisations needed days or weeks to recover from targeted attacks on cloud infrastructures, the longest period of any cause identified.

In response to the pandemic, 30 per cent of respondents to Netrix’s survey said they had to change their IT priorities but stick to their existing budget, while 19 per cent reported security budget cuts.

“Cloud technologies enable financial organisations to remain competitive and offer innovative services to their clients,” said Ilia Sotnikov, vice president of product management at Netwrix. “To leverage the cloud in a secure and compliant manner, financial organisations should invest in automated security tools such as data discovery and classification and provide training to ensure their security pros can adapt to the rapidly changing cyber landscape.”

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