There has already been a lot of debate for why some of the
major American firms have not taken enough security measures to protect their
company from frequent cyber-attacks. Now, a lot of the Wall Street giants are
under such attacks. Not only have the hackers been attacking the banks and the brokerage
firms, they have also been after the news-makers, distributors, and the business
reporters. Recently, a group of Russian hackers broke into the Dow Jones servers
and stole information that they used to trade on. FBI has been keenly looking
into this matter. Other cyber-attacks happened to retail brokerage Scottrade
where they announced that the hacking affected up to 4.6 million clients and
was aimed at stealing names and street addresses. Reportedly, some of the
hackers stole more than 150,000 press releases from a handful of news wires in
August which contained financial information that could be used for trading. JP
Morgan was under such an attack in 2014 where the hackers stole contact
information for more than 70 million households.
It can be said without any doubt that no one in the
financial services sector is safe in the modern world. It was surprising that
some of companies cut back on their budgets for technological improvements earlier
in the year. Finance and other major companies need to invest more on increasing their cyber-security
and shield against such frequent attacks soon, else the scenario will keep
getting worse.
5 comments:
These attacks could certainly have dire implications depending on how the public reacts. If people become fearful and retract their funds from financial institutions, America's capital markets would be crippled in their ability to function.
Cyber-security has continued to gain importance in every industry today. Consumers will continue to lose confidence especially in the stock market as they continue to get money and private information stolen through cyber-attacks. The cyber-security industry will continue to grow as consumers and firms require these services to guarantee their safety from cyber-threats.
Cyber-security is going to become a very lucrative market in the future and one that will be vital to companies. As companies move to becoming more and more connected through computers, devices, and smartphones more and more sensitive information about the company as well as their customers will become digitized increasing the need for these types of safety services. I think it will be detrimental to companies if their customers cannot be assured that their information will be safe within the company from these types of attacks. Without consumer confidence in this area there will be no business or growth in the future.
I agree in that at this point especially, consumer confidence is the priority, as firms have demonstrated they are not secure. It may not only hinder consumer confidence, but may also be ultimately detrimental to the overall market with customers having less incentive to invest in stocks. Given the bad track record of these given firms, companies need to be prioritizing investing in R&D in order to find preventative measures. Also, this could be seen as an opportunity for software companies to innovate the most secure networks that are invincible (or close to) against cyber attacks.
Essentially cyber based crimes have been a nuisance for companies. They rightfully lead to customer uncertainty and skepticism, which in turn is detrimental for a firms functionality. That being said they do need to invest more into this issue of cyber security to make it as tight knit as possible. Business growth and consumer confidence are both key elements with respect to cyber crime regarding firms.
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