Modern Bank Heists 5.0

This marks the fifth edition of the Modern Bank Heists report, which annually takes the pulse of the financial industry’s top CISOs and security leaders to provide executives with a ground truth on the changing behavior of cybercriminal cartels and the defensive shift of the financial sector. In this year’s report, 130 financial sector security leaders from around the world revealed the type of attacks they’re currently seeing, what threats they’re most concerned about, and how they’re adjusting their security strategy and spend.

The findings of the Modern Bank Heists report reflect the massive impact that the events of the past year have had, and continue to have, on financial institutions around the world.

Since last year’s edition published, security has become a top­ of-mind issue for business leaders amid rising geopolitical tension, an increase in destructive attacks utilizing wipers and Remote Access Tools (RATs), and a record-breaking year of Zero Day exploits. The U.S. kicked off international efforts with over 30 global partners to fight ransomware by addressing the financial systems and safe harbors that make ransomware profitable, and encouraging international law enforcement collaboration to disrupt the ransomware ecosystem. U.S. private-public sector collaboration also made incredible strides with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) creation of the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), of which VMware is a founding member.

This continued collaboration will be key to combatting the evolving threats detailed in this year’s report. Financial institutions are being hit with multiple ransomware attacks as the security industry bands together to fight back against ransomware groups like DarkSide and Conti. Cybercrime cartels are targeting market strategies, taking over brokerage accounts, and island hopping into the banks. Attackers are moving from heist to hijack, from dwell to destruction.