The boss of one of many UK’s largest banks has stated the specter of cyber-attacks “retains me awake at night time”.
Ian Stuart, the CEO of HSBC UK, stated cyber-security was “high of the agenda” for his banking group, and coping with IT vulnerabilities was an “monumental” expense for the sector as an entire.
He stated: “It does fear me – we might be attacked and we’re being attacked on a regular basis.”
Mr Stuart and different financial institution bosses have been talking to the Commons Treasury Committee which has been taking proof on a spread of points affecting the trade, together with how susceptible it’s to outages and cyber-attacks.
In March, it emerged nine major banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated at least 803 hours – the equal of 33 days – of tech outages up to now two years.
In latest weeks, retailers Co-op and Marks & Spencer have skilled extreme disruption after being focused by hackers.
Lisa Forte, of the cyber-security firm Purple Goat, instructed BBC Information that Mr Stuart had made “an extremely essential level”.
“Cyber-attacks are rising in each quantity and severity,” she stated.
“Criminals are monetising assaults extra effectively, and we’re at some extent now the place it very a lot is when not if companies will expertise an assault.”
Mr Stuart stated his banking group was spending a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of kilos enhancing its IT programs.
“I feel the sum of money banks – all of us – will likely be placing into our programs is gigantic,” he stated.
“The defence mechanisms you set in are completely vital.”
Throughout his group, he stated they’re processing 1,000 funds a second whereas making 8,000 IT adjustments and updates each week.
Prof Oli Buckley, a cyber-security professional at Loughborough College, stated cyber-attacks on monetary establishments have been “relentless” and “more and more subtle”.
“Ian Stuart is certainly proper to focus on cyber-security as a significant concern for the banking sector, however latest occasions inside retail have been a stark reminder that it could influence each sector,” he added.
“It goes past simply defending buyer knowledge, it is about sustaining belief in all the monetary system. A breach would not simply danger particular person accounts; it could ripple by way of markets, reputations, public confidence and past.”
Barclays, Lloyds, Nationwide, Santander, NatWest, Danske Financial institution, Financial institution of Eire and Allied Irish Financial institution have additionally offered info to the committee.
Between January 2023 and February this yr, they skilled 158 IT failures between them.
Vim Maru, CEO of Barclays UK, addressed MPs in regards to the Barclays outage which occurred on what was January pay day for many individuals.
Critical IT issues affected on-line banking for a number of days, left some folks unable to maneuver residence – and will consequence within the financial institution dealing with compensation funds of £12.5m, a report has found.
Mr Maru apologised to clients, saying he was “deeply sorry for the disruption”. He stated there was no proof it was attributable to a cyber-attack or a malicious act.
Following the Barclays incident in January, about 1.2m folks within the UK have been then affected by additional banking outages in February.
These issues occurred at Lloyds, TSB, Nationwide and HSBC.
