When someone hears the term “cyber crime” they will usually think of their personal information being stolen, for instance when someone steals your credit card information and goes on a shopping spree. However, cyber crime no longer strictly applies to personal information. According to a recent survey by McAfee and Science Applications International Corporate (SAIC), cyber crime has made a shift from personal information to corporate intellectual property which is causing big problems for many firms.
Cyber intellectual property includes trade secrets, marketing plans, research and development findings and even source code. Theft of this kind can result in a slow down or complete stopping of mergers or acquisitions and product or solution launches, which ultimately can lead to the loss of millions of dollars for a company. The survey also says that most firms who have suffered from this type of security breach did not report it. The survey also mentioned that 62 percent of respondents cited securing mobile devices to be the most challenging. Mobile technology has been making a big splash in the financial services world lately, but are there security issues that consumers are unaware of?
The question now becomes, what can financial firms do to prevent cyber crimes? Scott Aken, Vice President of SAIC, says that organizations may have to develop new tools that will have the capability to predict attacks based on human behavior. Often these cyber thieves are stealing company credentials first to act as an insider so it is less likely that they will be detected. This new threat could potentially lead to new data security protocols for financial firms down the line and new technology to detect these cyber thieves. Corporate intellectual property is one of the most valuable assets a company has and financial firms will now need to step up and make some changes to keep it protected.
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