Wall Street urged to improve its cybersecurity defences
[WASHINGTON] President Barack Obama's administration is urging Wall Street banks to bolster their defences against cyber-attacks, calling the US finance industry a "treasure trove" for high-tech criminals.
"Virtually every process you engage in needs to be reviewed and updated, enterprise-wide, from a cyber-resiliency perspective," Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin said in remarks prepared for a banking conference on Tuesday. Companies should require multi-step identity checks for anyone accessing their networks or data, she said.
Raskin's speech at the annual meeting of the Clearing House, a financial-industry trade group, comes a week after US prosecutors detailed a vast, multi-year criminal enterprise focusing on hacks of at least nine big financial and publishing companies. Suspects were tied to previously reported hacks of JPMorgan Chase & Co, E*Trade Financial Corp, Scottrade Financial Services Inc and News Corp's Dow Jones & Co.
Only people "absolutely necessary to run your business, operations, and systems" should have high-level access, Raskin said. "Banks - as the entry points and connecting nodes for the financial system as well as the holders of a treasure trove of high value customer data - are natural targets for bad actors."
Payment-system firms are also attractive targets because they are "therails on which currency, debit and credit card, and other transfers of monetary value travel," she said.
BLOOMBERG
BT is now on Telegram!
For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes
Banking & Finance
Japanese yen slides back towards 34-year low after brief spike
China’s Bank of Communications Q1 profit rises 1.44%
HSBC’s private bank shuts independent asset management business in HK, Singapore
Nomura Q4 net profit jumps almost eight-fold on retail income surge
Rescue pup to meme star: the real-life ‘Dogecoin’ dog
Money laundering accused Zhang Ruijin slapped with 5 more charges days before scheduled guilty plea