Deloitte: Cyber security a top priority

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

According to Deloitte’s 8th global financial services industry security survey, Australian and Asia Pacific financial services industry organisations have made information security governance their top security initiative.With the exception of Canada and Japan, more than 50% of respondents of the more than 250 financial services organisations from 39 countries that were surveyed, reported an increase in their information security budgets.

The survey revealed that mobile network vulnerabilities are highest in Canada and lowest in APAC and Japan. As a part of the mobility program, many organisations have already deployed, or plan to deploy, mobile VPN, central device management, and mobile device management software. However, more than 50% of respondents have not yet planned to deploy anti-phishing software, employee and customer-facing applications, and data loss prevention for mobile devices.

While APAC and Australia’s financial sectors lags those in the US, UK and Canada in terms of uptake of cloud computing, 50% of participants reported that they had implemented or purchased cloud computing services.

And although one in three financial institutions in Asia Pacific including Australia endured a privacy related breach in the last year, in the US, 50% of all financial institutions were breached, and in the UK more than two out of three financial services organisations were breached.