The financial services industry has seen a prolific rise in the use of applications in the last couple of years.

Globally millions of customers already use a wide range of mobile app services, and it is estimated that the financial application industry will grow at a rate of 30% in the coming years.In 2020 there were 26% more mobile app sessions as compared to 2019.

Using applications for different financial and banking services is a rapid and convenient way to effectively manage your monetary resources like checking balance, transferring funds, paying bills and so on.Financial apps are growing in precedence as several users using smartphones are on the rise.

Also, applications are preferred more as it provides on the go services.But the increase in the use of applications for financial purposes come with a whole new set of cyber security problems.

Security is the principal requirement for an application in the financial industry as a lot of financial resources are at stake.The application industry has still not reached its potential as there are apprehensions among customers, such as app security, data breach, etc.

A good application must primarily provide trust, security and data privacy if they want a considerable number of customers using the application.Since these applications are accessed anywhere from various devices and on numerous channels, there is a need for the financial company to build robust cyber security systems to prevent attacks and threats of any kind.

This is even more important for small companies that do not have a security team and whose employees are not security savvy.Even the most hardened security-focused organizations can’t always identify every possible crack in their defenses.

Sometimes, the best way to find out what’s broken is to do a security assessment.

A security assessment is exactly what it sounds like: an evaluation of a company’s security.

A company that conducts security assessments regularly may be better prepared to identify and fix any holes in their security.

Types of Security Risk Assessment Vulnerability AssessmentVulnerability assessment aims to provide a systematic review of the security lapses and weaknesses in an organisation’s systems and architecture.

It works by assigning severity levels to vulnerabilities and recommending remedies.Penetration TestingPen testing involves simulated cyber-attacks against an organisation’s systems, internal and external network, APIs, cloud setups etc.

Smartphones are an inseparable part of our lives.

If our phone is taken away from us for even a day, for most of us it’s like being deprived of a basic need.

We store all kinds of data in our phone – contacts, photos, videos, personal data, documents; we use numerous apps for making our lives easy – banking, insurance, online shopping, stocks, real estate; we rely on our phones for communication and socialising – chatting and video calling, social media, emails, professional groups; the list is endless with what phones can be used for.Needless to say, if one loses their phone or it gets stolen, all that data and information is at risk.

If there was no screen lock on the phone, the person who has or finds the phone can do serious damage if they want to.

For instance:Access photos and videos and use them unethically.Access the contacts in the phone and harass them by crank calling, or sending unethical or threatening messages, or worse.We log in to apps and never log out.

On some apps like those of online shopping or food delivery, we save our card details.

Cyber Security issues have become a constant struggle for all industries today, and the healthcare industry is no exception.

Hacking into and breaching of data from common devices like smartphones, and sophisticated hardware like IoT devices, are frequent and ever-increasing.More than 93% of healthcare organisations have experienced a data breach in the past three years (Source).

Confirmed data breaches have increased by 58% in the year 2020 (Source).

According to IBM, the healthcare industry incurs an average cost of $7.13 million (Source) for a data breach and hold the most expensive industry title.The damaging stats mentioned above indicate that healthcare is one of the lucrative victims of cyber-attacks in cyberspace.

But why is the healthcare sector such a big target for scammers and Cyber Criminals?The short answer to this is the valuable data that healthcare organisations possess, which makes healthcare a high-risk industry.

Most cyber-attacks are intended to steal social security numbers, medical records, and other personal data.Besides data, the other critical assets in healthcare are device and equipment.

In today’s world of increasing cyber-dependency, both businesses as well as personal transactions are reliant on digital modes of information exchange.

Whether it concerns communication between business partners or company departments, most of us rely on emails and other online modes of information exchange.

There’s no denying that these communication channels are super convenient and easy, they could pose a serious threat to the safety and integrity of cyber systems, if not managed securely.

The rapid proliferation of digital crime has made terms such as social engineering and it’s sub-parts such as phishing a part of the common vocabulary.

Yet, how much do we truly know about these modes of attack?Read Full Post Here: THE WHY AND HOW OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING

Data privacy and protection are two imperative aspects for all businesses today as they could be prone to security breaches.

Many small and medium organisations tend to ignore application security as they believe only large enterprises are targeted by hackers.

However, statistics tell a different story, 43% of cybercrimes happen against small businesses.There are several reasons behind a cyber-attack against these organisations’; from old, unpatched security vulnerabilities to malware or human errors which make take them a lucrative target for attackers.

This indicates that businesses need to implement security best practices to protect their applications and assets from future threats.There are several security standards and online communities such as OWASP and NIST who work hard to produce freely available articles, methodologies, tools and documentation that can help organisations strengthen their IT environment and safeguard from security breaches.To support with facts, here are some chilling stats that will give an idea of how these cyber security threats impact an enterprise:If we talk about the current scenario, data breaches exposed 36 billion records in the first half of 2020.86% of cyber security breaches are financially motivated and 10% are motivated by espionage.Looking at the categorisation, 45% of the breaches feature hacking, 17% include malware, and phishing is involved in 22%.One of the biggest reasons for such attacks is the accessibility of files to every employee on a large scale.

The million-dollar question is, what can organisations do to keep attackers away from compromising sensitive and confidential information?The answer to this question is simple – Proactive Cyber Security Strategy to protect organisation’s assets such as web applications, information systems and servers.In this blog, we will list and discuss the top 5 web application security threats, and then some of the best security practices to protect your web applications against evolving cyber threats.TOP 5 SECURITY THREATS ASSOCIATED WITH WEB APPLICATIONS1.

INJECTION FLAWSInjections flaws allow an attacker to insert malicious code in another system such as interpreter using an application.

Did you know that there exists a mysterious world of websites beyond the web content we normally view and access?

That any website Google or any other search engine can find are part of the “surface web” which constitutes only 4% of the world wide web?

Which means, if visualising the whole of the web as an iceberg, the surface web is just the tip that is visible while the remaining 96% is hidden!Wow….really??

!Statistics and views differ to a degree, but more or less, yes, we kind of browse less than 5% of the world wide web.So, what is in this hidden part of the web which we cannot generally access?

And why is it hidden?

To know about it, we need to understand 2 terms – deep web and dark web.WHAT IS THE DARK WEB?The dark web is contained within the deep web.

How businesses should go about budgeting for cyber security measures in this day and age?Cyber security is the foremost concern of Chief Information Security Officers (CISO’s) and IT security professionals globally.

It is the first and last thought on their minds during their working day when they strive for securing the data and assets of their enterprise.Budgeting for cyber security must be done like budgeting for any other enterprise expense bucket.

Spend on information security measures and advancement has increased exponentially in the last several years to keep up with the ever-evolving cyber threats landscape.

Spend in Australia on cyber security was $5.6b in 2020, while globally it was estimated to reach $123b.Traditionally, information security has been considered as a “necessary evil” investment where organisations have put in the necessary foundational and basic measures, but not done much with the remaining budget.This outlook has changed dramatically to cope with and counter the variety of threats and risks enterprises face today from hackers and cybercriminals.The Covid-19 pandemic resulting in a global shift to working from home arrangements forced enterprises to rethink their information security strategy, move superfast and adopt enhanced security measures which they would not have budgeted for in their fiscal year 2020 budgets.As a result, the majority of all enterprises, small and big, needed to put a halt to other IT projects and divert the budgets and resources to enhance cyber security operations for the newly formed remote workforces and the enterprises.Read Full Post From Original Source: How to Plan Cybersecurity Budget Effectively?