Penetration Testing for Financial Institutions: Why is it so Important?
By: Drew Dinan | PCR Business Systems
You can’t blame a financial services executive for not putting much stock into cybersecurity, let alone pen testing services. Despite the growing rate of cyberattacks against Ohio financial institutions, finance leaders have a million other things to worry about in their day-to-day operations. Cybersecurity is an expense that doesn’t directly lead to profits. Getting a penetration (pen) test won’t move the needle.
But what if one simple (and free) test could help secure your network from a data breach? What if it only took ten minutes of your time to protect what you’ve spent years building?
You’d feel terrible if your business was hacked because you didn’t sign up for the test, wouldn’t you? Especially if that breach resulted in significant downtime, high fines and lawsuits, and the lost trust of your clients.
Pen testing services provide the most accurate method to truly detect vulnerabilities in your network. In a world flooded with emails and advertisements filled with empty promises about what your business needs, pen tests show actual results. They expose exactly what a hacker would find if they breached your systems and applications, and give you time to fix those weaknesses before your business becomes another cybersecurity statistic.
Still not sold that your business needs pen testing services?
Here are 4 reasons why penetration testing for financial institutions is so important:
1) Pen testing services uncover holes in your security before a hacker can exploit them.
Before you can fix a cybersecurity flaw, you must first identify it. The main objective of penetration testing services is to uncover any security vulnerabilities in your systems, applications, services, or in the user behavior of your staff before a hacker does. Once you identify your security flaws, you can address them in advance of a cyberattack.
Without taking a detailed look into your cybersecurity through advanced penetration testing services, it is extremely difficult to know where your weaknesses lie. But trust us, hackers will be looking for these flaws as well, and eventually they will find them.
According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021, The average cost of a data breach in the financial services sector was over $5.72 million. In other words, your business is a valuable target.
Once your pen test is complete, we will provide you with a detailed report advising how to fix any vulnerabilities related to patch management status, perimeter defense (firewalls), passwords and access management, potential data leaks, malware defense, data encryption, and more. In addition, we will work with your business to create a long-term plan to continually withstand cyberattacks, achieve and maintain cybersecurity compliance, and adhere to cybersecurity best practices in the workplace.
2) Penetration tests are required by many cyber insurance providers.
Northeast Ohio financial institutions store a wealth of personal customer and client data, including but not limited to social security numbers, bank account details, home addresses, contact information, and income statistics. This information can be extremely valuable to cybercriminals and is why the financial sector is one of the leading targets of hackers.
Due to the growing number of cyber criminals trying to profit off financial data, cyber insurance companies are now beginning to require pen testing services as a condition of cybersecurity insurance coverage. Many cyber insurance companies will not cover the costs of a cyberattack if you fail to show that your institution has taken a proactive approach to ensure your systems are secure and are not vulnerable to a breach.
A True Story: Ohio Art Heist
A few years ago, a local business owner experienced first-hand how creative hackers have become. At the same time, he learned that a data breach can happen to any business that stores customer data, regardless of its size.
The victim, the owner of a local art dealership, was hacked without any knowledge that a breach had occurred. Hackers uncovered a vulnerability in the company’s network that gave them access to the gallery’s appraisals, which included customer addresses and the value of their pieces. Over the next few weeks, the hackers used this information to burglarize the homes of the gallery’s clients.
A simple penetration test would have alerted the dealer to cybersecurity weaknesses in his network and allowed him to fix them before being hacked. Read more about the Ohio Art Heist.
3) Penetration testing for financial institutions help validate your company’s cybersecurity controls.
Any financial services business can claim they have the highest level of security controls in place to prevent a breach. But not all of them can prove it. When cybersecurity is effective you don’t hear about it. Your main claim, if you are fortunate enough to have not experienced a breach, is that “we’ve never been hacked.”
But clients and investors want more. With so many high-profile financial institutions being breached in the last decade, such as Capital One, Equifax, and the First American Corporation, people want greater assurance that their private information is being a fully protected. This is one of the reasons PCR Business Systems chose to become SOC 2, Type 2 Certified. It was not enough to tell our clients that we adhere to the most advanced security protocols, we wanted to prove it.
The best way to demonstrate that your organization has taken the appropriate steps to protect sensitive customer data is through a successful pen test and documented results showing there are no vulnerabilities in your network, systems, applications, or employee behavior.
Keep in mind that most initial pen tests will be a “failure,” and that we will likely find security vulnerabilities. This is not a bad thing, but you will need to act fast to plug those holes. Our expert cybersecurity team will work directly with your business to help you implement the most advanced cybersecurity controls, while educating your staff on cybersecurity best practices to eliminate the risk of human error.
4) You can’t afford to cut corners on your financial institution’s cybersecurity.
It is the responsibility of financial services leaders to understand the growing cybersecurity risks to financial institutions and to take the necessary steps to mitigate them. This can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.
It only takes a few minutes of your time to schedule a penetration test, and for a limited time, we are offering them for FREE to Northeast Ohio finance businesses.
A data breach that exposes the sensitive data of your vendors and clients could result in significant business downtime and operational costs, fines and/or lawsuits, high ransomware payments to get the data back, and the tarnished reputation of your business. In other words, a breach can be devastating to your business and to the livelihoods of your staff.
It takes very little effort on your end to get the pen test set up and running. Please don’t wait for a hacker to identify your company’s security flaws. Get ahead of them with our industry-leading penetration testing services.
You can’t blame a financial services executive for not putting much stock into cybersecurity, let alone pen testing services. Despite the growing rate of cyberattacks against Ohio financial institutions, finance leaders have a million other things to worry about in their day-to-day operations. Cybersecurity is an expense that doesn’t directly lead to profits. Getting a penetration (pen) test won’t move the needle.
But what if one simple (and free) test could help secure your network from a data breach? What if it only took ten minutes of your time to protect what you’ve spent years building?
You’d feel terrible if your business was hacked because you didn’t sign up for the test, wouldn’t you? Especially if that breach resulted in significant downtime, high fines and lawsuits, and the lost trust of your clients.
Pen testing services provide the most accurate method to truly detect vulnerabilities in your network. In a world flooded with emails and advertisements filled with empty promises about what your business needs, pen tests show actual results. They expose exactly what a hacker would find if they breached your systems and applications, and give you time to fix those weaknesses before your business becomes another cybersecurity statistic.
Still not sold that your business needs pen testing services?
Here are 4 reasons why penetration testing for financial institutions is so important:
1) Pen testing services uncover holes in your security before a hacker can exploit them.
Before you can fix a cybersecurity flaw, you must first identify it. The main objective of penetration testing services is to uncover any security vulnerabilities in your systems, applications, services, or in the user behavior of your staff before a hacker does. Once you identify your security flaws, you can address them in advance of a cyberattack.
Without taking a detailed look into your cybersecurity through advanced penetration testing services, it is extremely difficult to know where your weaknesses lie. But trust us, hackers will be looking for these flaws as well, and eventually they will find them.
According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021, The average cost of a data breach in the financial services sector was over $5.72 million. In other words, your business is a valuable target.
Once your pen test is complete, we will provide you with a detailed report advising how to fix any vulnerabilities related to patch management status, perimeter defense (firewalls), passwords and access management, potential data leaks, malware defense, data encryption, and more. In addition, we will work with your business to create a long-term plan to continually withstand cyberattacks, achieve and maintain cybersecurity compliance, and adhere to cybersecurity best practices in the workplace.
2) Penetration tests are required by many cyber insurance providers.
Northeast Ohio financial institutions store a wealth of personal customer and client data, including but not limited to social security numbers, bank account details, home addresses, contact information, and income statistics. This information can be extremely valuable to cybercriminals and is why the financial sector is one of the leading targets of hackers.
Due to the growing number of cyber criminals trying to profit off financial data, cyber insurance companies are now beginning to require pen testing services as a condition of cybersecurity insurance coverage. Many cyber insurance companies will not cover the costs of a cyberattack if you fail to show that your institution has taken a proactive approach to ensure your systems are secure and are not vulnerable to a breach.
A True Story: Ohio Art Heist
A few years ago, a local business owner experienced first-hand how creative hackers have become. At the same time, he learned that a data breach can happen to any business that stores customer data, regardless of its size.
The victim, the owner of a local art dealership, was hacked without any knowledge that a breach had occurred. Hackers uncovered a vulnerability in the company’s network that gave them access to the gallery’s appraisals, which included customer addresses and the value of their pieces. Over the next few weeks, the hackers used this information to burglarize the homes of the gallery’s clients.
A simple penetration test would have alerted the dealer to cybersecurity weaknesses in his network and allowed him to fix them before being hacked. Read more about the Ohio Art Heist.
3) Penetration testing for financial institutions help validate your company’s cybersecurity controls.
Any financial services business can claim they have the highest level of security controls in place to prevent a breach. But not all of them can prove it. When cybersecurity is effective you don’t hear about it. Your main claim, if you are fortunate enough to have not experienced a breach, is that “we’ve never been hacked.”
But clients and investors want more. With so many high-profile financial institutions being breached in the last decade, such as Capital One, Equifax, and the First American Corporation, people want greater assurance that their private information is being a fully protected. This is one of the reasons PCR Business Systems chose to become SOC 2, Type 2 Certified. It was not enough to tell our clients that we adhere to the most advanced security protocols, we wanted to prove it.
The best way to demonstrate that your organization has taken the appropriate steps to protect sensitive customer data is through a successful pen test and documented results showing there are no vulnerabilities in your network, systems, applications, or employee behavior.
Keep in mind that most initial pen tests will be a “failure,” and that we will likely find security vulnerabilities. This is not a bad thing, but you will need to act fast to plug those holes. Our expert cybersecurity team will work directly with your business to help you implement the most advanced cybersecurity controls, while educating your staff on cybersecurity best practices to eliminate the risk of human error.
4) You can’t afford to cut corners on your financial institution’s cybersecurity.
It is the responsibility of financial services leaders to understand the growing cybersecurity risks to financial institutions and to take the necessary steps to mitigate them. This can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.
It only takes a few minutes of your time to schedule a penetration test, and for a limited time, we are offering them for FREE to Northeast Ohio finance businesses.
A data breach that exposes the sensitive data of your vendors and clients could result in significant business downtime and operational costs, fines and/or lawsuits, high ransomware payments to get the data back, and the tarnished reputation of your business. In other words, a breach can be devastating to your business and to the livelihoods of your staff.
It takes very little effort on your end to get the pen test set up and running. Please don’t wait for a hacker to identify your company’s security flaws. Get ahead of them with our industry-leading penetration testing services.
