According to a survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International in 2014, about 53% of companies are willing to invest in software specifically designed to protect financial transactions, using either components installed in their own infrastructure or provided by a third-party service.
As per Kaspersky Lab’s survey, the safety of payment data and financial transactions is a high priority for business: one-third of companies (34%) place the protection of this information as a top three IT management priority for the coming year, and nearly half the respondents believe their company needs greater security for financial transactions. Larger companies are more willing to invest in the best security technology: among enterprises with more than 5,000 employees, 64% of companies have declared that they are ready to pay more for a premium security service, compared to 48% of smaller businesses 15% of respondents also believe the cost should not be a determining factor in this case.
The survey also noted how often cybercriminals steal financial data from companies: 33% of businesses which lost data in cyber-attacks admitted payment data was stolen. 32% of respondents felt this was the worst possible type of data they could lose. And it appears their fears are justified — Kaspersky Lab experts recently discovered a fraud campaign targeting the clients of a large European bank, where the fraudsters intercepted customer financial data and in the space of just one week, stole more than half a million euros from accounts in the bank. Today it is also important for businesses to think about multi-platform protection since, according to the survey, 43% of businesses claimed to conduct sensitive transactions on mobile devices.
“Customers are willing to invest in protecting their payments, and the high rate of financial data theft demonstrated in our survey is yet another reason why effective protection is worth the investment. Financial service providers should implement integrated security solutions that provide proactive fraud prevention to maximize effectiveness and optimize user experience. These layers of protection will allow financial service providers to not only avoid the loss of money and reputation that result from data breaches, but to earn extra income by attracting new customers and offering additional high margin services to existing customers as a differentiator,” says Ross Hogan, Global Head of the Fraud Prevention Division at Kaspersky Lab.