The Evolving Battle: Tackling Advanced Cyber Threats in the Middle East’s Financial Sector
Evolving tactics demand collaborative strategies, prioritizing data security and regulatory compliance to safeguard against sophisticated attacks.
- Nir Zuk, Founder - Palo Alto Networks
The Middle East’s financial sector is becoming an increasingly attractive target for sophisticated cyberattacks, driven by several key factors. Mobile financial services, online transactions, and emerging technologies such as AI and cloud computing have expanded the potential attack surfaces. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, cybersecurity ranks among the top five global threats over the next two years, with banking systems as key targets.
For cybersecurity professionals working within the sector, the pressure doesn’t end there. New data protection laws, such as the three new policies being developed by the UAE Cybersecurity Council on “cloud computing and data security,” “Internet of Things security,” and “cybersecurity operations centers,” demand that financial institutions rigorously protect customer data. However, the increasing sophistication of attacks driven by AI often outpaces the requirements of such regulations, let alone the time taken for them to come into force. All this creates significant pressure on financial institutions to establish best practices for themselves that enable them to secure their operations, reduce vulnerabilities, and maintain consumer trust.
The Role of Regulations in Cybersecurity
Regulations significantly impact the financial sector’s cybersecurity strategies, often with a primary focus on risk management. However, while threats evolve rapidly, regulations often lag and take time to develop. Traditional corporate security teams can no longer prevent breaches as swiftly as attackers compromise systems, and monitoring tools have limited ability to stop a threat. That’s because the time it takes for attackers to compromise and exfiltrate data is now quicker than the time it takes for an organisation to remediate, which is typically 4-6 days.
With the average data breach now costing around $4.45 million, financial institutions need a proactive cybersecurity strategy, not one that is reactive to regulation alone, including investment in advanced technologies to detect and neutralise threats quickly. Financial institutions should only view regulatory requirements as a foundational baseline, rather than a comprehensive basis for defence. Within the financial sector, more than any other, proactive, threat-based strategies are essential.
AI: Both a Threat and a Solution
Emerging technologies are reshaping business functions in financial services, enhancing the customer experience and operational efficiency, but they also introduce new security risks. Today, attackers are using artificial intelligence for reconnaissance, social engineering, malicious code development and more. These tactics accelerate attacks, making them more difficult to counter with traditional cybersecurity measures. Even within the security department, it has become a double-edged sword, aiding both cyber criminals and defenders. While many organisations adopt AI to improve operations, the technology also expands attack surfaces, allowing cybercriminals to automate and scale attacks.
By consolidating security products and shifting to a platform approach, AI-driven cybersecurity solutions can be best utilised to help institutions detect and respond to threats in real-time, protect data, and be more agile in response to incoming regulations.
Communicating Cybersecurity Needs
To implement the right solutions, security teams first need trust and investment, which means presenting the cyber challenge to the board. C-level leaders in the financial sector often underestimate their cyber resilience, so effective communication from CISOs and CTOs about cybersecurity risks and investment needs is essential.
Maintaining trust is crucial for any business that handles sensitive, personal, or critical data. Where financial services institutions do rely on reputation, any investment in cyber is a good investment. It means a reduction in risk from cyber-attacks, which carry financial implications, in addition to the fact that an effective security posture can lead to funds being released from a business’s cyber insurance policy. In the digital financial landscape, robust cybersecurity measures safeguard reputation, customer trust, and operational continuity. As digital transformation continues at pace, banks and other financial entities must embed security into every aspect of their operations – turning investments in AI and cybersecurity innovations into competitive advantages.
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