Last week, the Tessian team was delighted to attend New Statesman’s second annual Cyber Security in Financial Services conference hosted in London. New Statesman is a leading British political and cultural publication that was founded/started in 1913.
The conference was attended by security executives from leading financial institutions. Attendees shared their experiences and best practices on how to secure the industry throughout a series of keynote speeches, panel discussions and networking sessions. Topics included digital transformation, open banking and threat intelligence.
Tessian’s Head of EMEA and APAC, Abhirukt Sapru joined GlobalData’s Ed Thomas on a panel to discuss the risks and opportunities of smart machines, artificial intelligence, and IoT in finance. Chaired by New Statesman’s Managing Editor, Will Dunn, the conversation started off by looking at the current threat landscape within the industry and examining the weak points that continue to make financial institutions vulnerable. The panel discussed that many organizations continue to use security solutions with pre-programmed rules, which are limited in their ability to detect and prevent evolving threats.
Abhirukt went on to address the prevailing problem within the industry: people. “The threat landscape is more about the person than the machine.” He continued by talking about how humans are bound to make mistakes
and break the rules, both accidentally and maliciously. Abhirukt recounted the regrettable time during his days as a banker when he misdirected an email containing sensitive data to the wrong person. He went on to say that organizations can invest a lot of money into security solutions, but if they don’t account for the human factor, then one mistake can cause substantial damage. Ed also added that from his experience that “issues with security really start with people and processes.”
The discussion continued to the topic of awareness and education. Both Abhirukt and Ed agreed that if education and cybersecurity awareness isn’t adopted at the top, then it is highly unlikely that it will trickle down throughout an organization. This aligned with one of the key themes of the conference: cybersecurity needs to be a board issue.
The discussion concluded with a Q&A session where questions focused on what financial institutions can do to discover the best solutions to invest in. The key takeaway? When it comes to securing data, financial institutions will continue to be at risk unless they get proactive with their security strategy.
To learn more about how Tessian is helping financial institutions like Evercore, speak to an expert today.
