Financial institutions in the US and UK cut security budgets by a quarter last year and saw cybercrime and fraud activity rise by about the same amount during the pandemic, according to new research from BAE Systems Applied Intelligence.
The British cybersecurity and risk management firm engaged Atomik Research to poll nearly 1000 banks and insurers and 2000 consumers in the US and UK back in March, in order to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on the industry.
It found that three-quarters (74%) of responding organizations experienced a rise in cybercrime since the start of the pandemic, with botnet attacks (35%), ransomware (35%), phishing (35%), mobile malware (32%), COVID-related malware (30%) and insider threats (29%) particularly common.
Although there’s no direct link between the two, the research revealed that budgets were cut by around the same amount (26%) as cybercrime increased (29%).
With the pandemic and budget cuts also came a surge in financial losses from cybercrime, growing 56% over the past 12 months to reach $720,000 on average.
Two-thirds (42%)…
