In the early 1930s, America was astounded and appalled by renowned criminals Bonne Parker and Clyde Barrow. The two out-laws were infamous for their bank robberies during the Great Depression.
Fast forward almost a century, and banks have to worry a lot less about modern Bonnie and Clydes. Instead, their greatest looming threats have gone underground into the vast depths of the Internet and cyberspace.
What would Bonnie and Clyde have to say about that I wonder?
Banks are bolstering their cyber security to fend off continuous cyber threats that have attacked banks and the government. ABC News among others reported that U.S. banks and federal agencies are prepping for a potential wave of cyber attacks from Anonymous hackers on Tuesday.
“The increasing frequency of cyber-terror attacks on depository institutions heightens the need for credit unions to maintain strong information security protocols,” the National Credit Union Administration said in a letter to federally insured credit unions.
It noted, “Recent incidents have included distributed denial-of-service attacks, which cause Internet-based service outages by overloading network bandwidth or system resources. DDoS attacks do not directly attempt to steal funds or sensitive personal information, but they may be coupled with such attempts to distract attention and/or disable alerting systems.”
NCUA released a statement, saying cyber security has become a main focus, and they are working with credit unions to determine their capacity to detect and repel cyber attacks.
The threats are becoming more eminent and persistent, with banks such as JPMorgan Chase [stock JPM] [/stock] and Wells Fargo [stock WFC] [/stock] getting hit.
“With respect to any threatened attacks, NCUA staff works with any known targeted credit union to determine whether they have in place mitigation processes, a communications plan in the event of a prolonged outage and procedures for monitoring and logging possible attacks,” John Fairbanks with NCUA said.
Despite the intensity of the attacks, cyber threats rarely lead to actual money losses, something Bonnie and Clyde might scoff at.
