Page 7 - Threat Intelligence 12-13-2019

Regulatory and

Privacy News

Small Contractors Struggle to Meet Cybersecurity Standards, Pentagon Finds. Small companies are struggling
to meet the Pentagon’s newish network security rules, and even larger contractors aren’t doing as well as they
think they are, a recent department study has found. “For the most part, the big companies do very well,”
Kevin Fahey, assistant defense secretary for acquisition, told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday. “But in no
case do they meet everything that they thought they met.” For one thing, big companies tend to give their
smaller subcontractors a lot of data they don’t need, which then becomes vulnerable to foreign hackers. “The
biggest part of our training and the problem is that our adversaries don’t try to come in through the big
companies, they come in through the fifth-, sixth-tier,” Fahey said. “If you’re flowing down information they
don’t need, then that’s bad. That’s where we’re seeing our biggest problem.”

Source: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/12/small-contractors-struggle-meet-
cybersecurity-standards-pentagon-finds/161628/

Thales study: U.S. financial institutions have highest rate of data breaches despite strict compliance
mandates. A new global study from Thales, with research from global market intelligence firm IDC, reveals
that U.S. financial institutions have the highest rate of data breaches compared to other industries. In fact,
nearly two thirds (62%) have experienced a breach in their history, and 41% had one occur in the last year
alone. According to the 2019 Thales Data Threat Report – Financial Services Edition, U.S. financial services
institutions are leading other industries when it comes to implementing digitally transformative technologies
with nearly all (97%) surveyed claiming they use sensitive data within digitally transformative environments.
However, the study also found that encryption rates for the U.S. organizations surveyed are 31% or less, even
though sensitive financial and payment data remains an attractive target for cybercriminals.
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/thales-study-u-financial-institutions-130000373.html

EastNets SWIFT Cyber Fraud Survey Report Reveals More Than 4 Out 5 Banks Are Targeted. As banks are
battling the growing risk of SWIFT* payment messaging fraud, EastNets today released its How Banks are
Combating the Rise in SWIFT Cyber Fraud survey report that reveals that most of the 200 banks surveyed
experienced an electronic SWIFT fraud attempt since 2016. In addition, two-thirds of banks responded that
SWIFT cybercrime attempts have been increasing since 2016. Worryingly, only two-fifths of banks are "very
confident" that they have detected every attempt at cyber SWIFT fraud since 2016. Despite this prevalence of
cyber-based SWIFT payment fraud, a significant portion of the banks responding to the survey cited that they
have no prevention policies addressing SWIFT cyber fraud. EastNets also identified a substantial insider risk
with one out of seven banks experiencing a fraud attempt involving an employee.

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/eastnets-swift-cyber-fraud-survey-report-
reveals-more-than-4-out-5-banks-are-targeted-1028720166

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