Tesco cyber-attack provides regulatory food for thought

Every little helps when it comes to controlling the financial system, but Giles Kenwright of Delta Capita explains why the Tesco cyber-attack will hopefully trigger banks and regulators to look at the bigger compliance picture 

A cyber-attack that wiped £2.5 million from a major supermarket’s client accounts in just a few hours, should ring alarm bells across the boardrooms of Britain’s biggest banks. While the damage to Tesco’s brand reputation may be substantial, more significant still is that this attack could be a sign of things to come for the wider banking sector.

It is not as if the major players have been burying their heads in the sand. Eight of the largest firms, including JP Morgan, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, teamed up earlier this year to tackle the growing cyberthreat. While still in its infancy, the group is already sharing information with eachother about where future threats could materialise. The trouble is that, at the same time, these conglomerates are entangled in the weeds of other regulatory issues, which is eating into time that could be spent developing a longer-term plan to tackle cybercrime.

Open letter to SWIFT

Dear SWIFT,

As a bank customer, I congratulate you on decades of smooth, high quality service. However, as a global body whose mission is to deliver funds between banks safely, the last few months have been, with respect, challenging.

Recent incidents in Bangladesh and elsewhere have damaged your credentials immensely. Your initial defence, that the breaches were largely the banks’ responsibilities, was quite remarkable. We’ve all thoroughly understood that the strength of the network is no greater than the strength of the weakest link. We just wish you had understood that before the rest of us.

Bank Heists for the Digital Age

As the line between the virtual and real criminal world grows ever murkier, it’s not surprising online bank robbers are using the anonymity afforded by cyberspace to infiltrate the real world and get their hands on physical cash.

At the same time, within the online world, criminals are diversifying, borrowing each other’s methods and innovating on a new level to fulfil their demands.