Banks are still a constant target for cyber-criminals

The ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Report for Q4 2015 shows there has been a 40% increase in cybercriminal activity against banks over the past 12 months, which includes more than 100 million attempts at fraud during this period: 21 million of these attempts came in just 90 days between October and December 2015.

The same period saw a record of 45 million bot attacks against banks, an increase of tenfold when compared with the previous quarter. The report warns that even if just one of these attacks was successful, a major bank could be paralysed for days, potentially leading to billions in lost business.

Fraudsters use vast networks of infected devices at their disposal to inundate online systems with large volumes of fraudulent transactions, using scripts often in conjunction with bots. Bots continue to be one of the biggest attack vectors against businesses across the globe, with ThreatMetrix figures suggesting that 200 million bot attacks were stopped during the three month period between October and December 2015, as cyber criminals looked to take advantage in a busy period for online transactions in the run up to Christmas.