Small Firms Have Edge in Fraud Fight

After a recent revelation by international security software firm Kaspersky Lab that some of the largest banks in the world had an estimated $1 billion stolen from them during the past 24 months, a few questions linger. How are smaller financial institutions faring versus extremely sophisticated cyber-fraudsters? Are they targeted as heavily as the global 200? Do they have the technological wherewithal to protect themselves from sophisticated cybercriminals? On the positive side, the small and mid-size institutions may not have some of the vulnerabilities of the larger financial institutions. At a conference hosted by technology research and advisory firm Gartner that focused on identity and access management, one of the three largest financial institutions in the country revealed that much of their fraud was cross channel. They saw fraud online, at the ATM and in the call center. Thirty percent or so of their cross channel fraud originated in the call center.