How financial services can face up to cyber threats in 2022

Global & Future Trends
Technical
CPD: 1 Hour(s)

Cybercrime is evolving at a frightening pace with financial services firmly in the firing line.

Hundreds of millions of attacks were recorded last year around the world, but experts fear the real level is much higher.

While many organisations consider cyber security risk to be a high risk for their organisation, there are additional measures organisations can and should take to address the risk.

In New Zealand, the Financial Market Authority (FMA) highlighted that financial services was a popular target for cyber criminals – and that the sector recorded the highest number of reported incidents across all other industries in New Zealand for the quarter ended March 2022.

The FMA says there are shortcomings in the cyber resilience and operational systems among entities it licenses, including underinvestment in technology and the use of unsupported or legacy systems.

When the World Economic Forum released its annual Global Risks Report 2022, failure of cyber security measures was the number one risk for Australian executives. That was even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increase in global instability.

Yet while one recent survey reported more than half of respondents identified cyber as a top five risk, less than half said they have taken steps to assess their cyber security against an established framework.

And earlier this year, in a landmark Australian decision, an Australian Financial Services licensee was found to have breached its obligations to act efficiently.

This gap between cyber risk awareness and action clearly needs to narrow if organisations are to properly manage their exposure.

FINSIA is bringing together two senior leaders in the field who have real-world experience dealing with the hackers.

Korda Mentha partner Brendan Read – a former Queensland detective in the high-tech crime unit - and Professor Nigel Phair, Director (Enterprise) Institute for Cyber Security, UNSW – who led a Federal police high tech team - bring valuable hands-on knowledge to this webinar.

Speakers

Nigel Phair

Director (Enterprise), UNSW Institute for Cyber

Nigel Phair is Director (Enterprise), UNSW Institute for Cyber. He is an influential analyst on the intersection of technology, crime and society. Nigel has published four acclaimed books on the international impact of cybercrime, is a regular media commentator and provides executive and board advice on strategy, risk & governance of technology. In a 21 year career with the Australian Federal Police he achieved the rank of Detective Superintendent and was a Team Leader of investigations at the Australian High Tech Crime Centre for over four years. He is a non-executive director on several Australian boards.

Brendan Read

Partner, Korda Mentha

Brendan’s two decades of experience in digital and cyber investigations includes 10 years’ within the Queensland Police Service. A founding member of the High-Tech Crime Investigation Unit, he worked alongside State, Federal and International law enforcement agencies, including the US Secret Service, co-ordinating multijurisdictional investigations involving covert operations into computer hacking and financial crimes spanning multiple countries.

Brendan has given evidence in many matters before District and Magistrates courts and in civil proceedings where digital evidence has been critical to the outcome. He has performed complex computer forensic examinations on computer systems for businesses, government agencies, criminal investigations, and civil litigation.