The greatest challenge faced by banks today is ‘insider threat’ and more needs to be done to help foster cyber resilience, according to ME’s Samantha Macleod.
The greatest challenge faced by banks today is ‘insider threat’ and more needs to be done to help foster cyber resilience, according to Samantha Macleod, General Manager of Cyber Security (CISO), ME.
Speaking at FST Media’s the Future of Security conference on Tuesday, Macleod said that the growing proliferation of cyber attacks has prompted ME to change its focus to ensure the bank’s technology infrastructure is “cyber resilient” and “digitised” by 2020.
Macleod’s comments support research conducted by the Enterprise Strategy Group on information security last year which found that 80 per cent of enterprise security professionals believe that endpoint security management and operations is “more difficult today” than it was in the past .
“Security awareness and education is really important to help build cyber resilience,” Macleod said.
“We see cyber security as a serious business oversight issue for us … our biggest threat is insider threat, whether malicious or by accident, and most of our issues will be based on security hygiene.”
Macleod said ME had responded by taking a proactive approach to benchmarking itself against all online service providers – not just banking incumbents – in a bid to become “the best mortgage bank” in the digital era.
“Our security strategy is all about our data,” she said.
“Building and keeping customer trust is our number one priority, keeping ME safe is another.”
According to Macleod, banks needed to be pre-emptive in their security discussions to help combat the threat of cyber breaches.
“Cyber security underpins everything we do at ME,” she said.
“The premise of security doesn’t change with the advent of cyber or digital, however our threat surface does.”
Currently, ME are actively looking at fintech investment and startups in the realm of cyber security.
Macleod said a key priority for ME in the coming months will also be to adapt the bank’s security operations environment.
