Over half (54%) of world monetary establishments skilled cyber-attacks final 12 months during which information was destroyed by adversaries, based on a brand new report from Distinction Safety.
The runtime safety specialist claimed in its Fashionable Financial institution Heists Report 2025 that the determine represented a 12.5% enhance on 2023.
Nonetheless, somewhat than destroying information as an finish in itself – resembling for sabotage and repair disruption – menace actors look like doing so so as to cowl their tracks.
“It’s value noting that cybercriminals within the monetary sector will usually leverage damaging assaults as an escalation to burn the proof as a part of a counter-incident response,” the report famous.
“Harmful malware variants search to destroy, disrupt or degrade sufferer programs by taking actions resembling encrypting information, deleting information, destroying laborious drives, terminating connections or executing malicious code.”
Read more on destructive attacks: Two-Thirds of Global Banks Report Surge in Destructive Attacks
General, two-thirds (64%) of respondents admitted their establishment had skilled cyber incidents over the previous 12 months. Though most (94%) claimed they had been in a position to efficiently detect and reply to those assaults, the report acknowledged that 46 “impactful” assaults per months had been in a position to bypass net software firewalls (WAFs).
Cloud environments and APIs had been cited as the 2 commonest assault vectors, with 71% of respondents arguing that zero-day threats are their largest concern concerning the safeguarding of apps and APIs.
Adversaries will not be solely destroying information to cover their tracks; they’re additionally seeking to steal and monetize it.
Round two-thirds of respondents instructed Distinction Safety that they had noticed menace actors trying to steal private market info, which may very well be used for insider buying and selling and “shoxing.” The latter includes shorting a inventory, earlier than doxing the stolen confidential information to regulators, the report defined.
An additional 48% of respondents stated they’d skilled a rise in buyer account takeovers in 2024, whereas 43% suffered an “island hopping” assault, the place menace actors use unauthorized entry in a sufferer financial institution to focus on clients and companions.
“As ways and motives evolve, monetary establishments have to rethink how they’re defending themselves,” argued Distinction Safety’s cybersecurity advisor, Tom Kellermann. “Steady monitoring of the applying layer for behavioral anomalies is crucial, and to try this, organizations should implement software protection and response (ADR) to dam assaults in manufacturing and catch vulnerabilities in apps and APIs.”
