The banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector is an obvious target for cyber criminals due to the wealth of credit card data, financial and banking information, personal health information (PHI) and other personally identifiable information (PII) that institutions in this industry require.
Moreover, business is now done in an increasingly mobile and global environment. End users as well as BFSI workers today expect to use smartphones and tablet devices alongside their laptop computers to access the information they need, no matter where they’re located.
The potential for data breaches is higher than ever and the expenses associated with responding to them are soaring.
Cost Of Data Breaches Up 23 Percent
Since 2013, the cost of a data breach — defined by the Ponemon Institute as “when sensitive, protected or confidential data is lost or stolen and put at risk” — has risen 23 percent.
Ponemon’s 2015 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis surveyed 350 companies across 11 countries, finding the average consolidated total cost to respond to and remediate a single corporate data breach is $3.8 million.
In 2015 the average cost of each lost or stolen data record containing sensitive or confidential information rose to $154, Ponemon reports. The U.S. claimed the highest average for an individual country at $217 per compromised record.
BFSI Continues To Be A Big Data Breach Target
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s 2015 Data Breach Report, at least 44 breaches occurred in the U.S. banking/credit/financial sector between Jan. 1, 2015 and July 28, 2015, with at least 400,000 individual records affected. Of those 44 breaches reported, the number of exposed records was known in just 10 instances. The number of individual data records exposed in the other 34 events, which include incidents at TD Bank, Citibank, Capital One and HSBC Mortgage Service Center, were unknown upon publication of this whitepaper.
Using Ponemon’s figures, if each of these affected records contained sensitive or confidential information, the cost of the 10 fully disclosed breaches totals about $89 million.
The number of breaches and the costs to combat them is likely to increase moving forward.
Staying Vigilant Against Data Loss In The BFSI Sector
The stakes are remarkably high in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector.
Organizations operating in this space often have the livelihood of stakeholders in their hands. Mishandling stakeholders’ data not only costs a firm money, but also invaluable reputation.
Banking institutions hold credit card information and records of equity and wealth. Insurers store and disseminate patients’ most private and sensitive health information. Financial services companies develop top-secret algorithms that countless individuals rely upon to fuel their retirement and savings accounts.
In return for such a delicate exchange, the onus is on BFSI firms to ensure secure file sharing within and outside of the enterprise. It’s imperative that stakeholder information (plus sensitive company information tied to their stakeholders’ livelihoods) remains only in the hands of authorized users.
Keeping BFSI Data Secure
BFSI companies are bound by industry or government regulations to make sure stakeholder data stays protected. The threat of data loss, leakage and theft is more serious today than ever before, and the consequences of a data leak in the BFSI sector are monumental.
Fortunately, today’s advanced enterprise digital rights management (DRM) technology is here to help companies in the BFSI sector ensure that sensitive data stays out of the wrong hands wherever it goes.
Read 5 Ways Enterprise DRM Helps The BFSI Sector Avoid Costly Data Leaks to learn more about enterprise DRM and how it enables BFSI firms to keep sensitive data under control.