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Banking

Solve the strategic security issues faced by the banking industry with MWR

The banking sector is currently experiencing a number of once-in-a-generation challenges, driven by advancing technology, shifting consumer habits and geopolitical events.

Whilst the internet and mobile have presented new avenues for banks to service their customers, they are also introducing new competition from startups and tech brands looking to disrupt the traditional banking model.

Within this landscape, the banking industry is seeing its cost base grow whilst being expected to be at the forefront of technological innovation, all under increasing scrutiny from the media, public and government. This means that banks and other financial services organisations must now deliver class-leading digital services in order to remain competitive.

The Cyber Threat

In the midst of these changes, the banking sector is also increasingly being targeted by cyber-attacks from every tier of hostile actor, including organised crime, terrorists and nation states. Perhaps surprisingly, financial gain is only one of many motivations for attacking the banking sector. Some of the most sophisticated cyber attacks – backed by nation states – are carried out with the simple aim of crippling the financial institution’s business functions, and hence causing harm to the wider system.

Due to the speed of these changes, traditional cyber security measures have been found wanting, as evidenced by the torrent of cyber breaches reported regularly. Forward-thinking organisations must build on the effective parts of their cyber security programmes with practical solutions in order to stay one step ahead.

Security is now, and has always been, top priority for banks but it is becoming ever more vital for organisations in the entire financial services sector to recognise and react to the rapidly-changing cyber risks they are now facing.

Move forward with MWR

Using the research–led approach that allows us to understand and respond to the cyber threats to the sector, MWR has been keeping global financial institutions secure for the past decade. In this time, we have developed highly-effective security solutions for the banking sector, enabling organisations to embrace new technologies, identify strategic risks and protect their most critical IT components. These should flow from your overall cyber security strategy, something that we can use our unique experience to ensure is fully aligned to your business risk appetite and threat profile. Effective cyber security strategies within the sector include the following key components:

  • Implement Effective Controls

By taking a threat-based approach, MWR can help you build a realistic view of your security posture, adopting programmes that are highly effective in practice.

An example of this is Attack Path Mapping, a unique solution that uses the assessment of real-world attack methods to determine the risk to your most critical assets, providing your organisation with actionable intelligence that can be used to mitigate risks.

  • Innovate securely

With solutions delivered by highly-skilled consultants within MWR’s Mobile Security and Security Assurance practices, we can help you create, develop and iterate your digital services securely. This allows you to harness the power of the web and mobile to deliver cutting-edge services for your customers.

By working closely with you, we ensure your App development team is equipped with the skills and knowledge to build the right security controls into the core of all your solutions.

  • Improve resilience to APT

Experience has taught us that if your business can resist targeted cyber attacks from advanced nation states, it can resist cyber attacks from almost all threat actors.

With strategic solutions such as Targeted Attack Simulations and ADCA exercises, delivered by consultants that truly understand the mind of an attacker, banking organisations can be safe in the knowledge they are using the most advanced defences to resist the most advanced attackers. Taking steps to secure your customer and financial data will protect your brand reputation and profitability, so it makes sense to work with an independent security organisation you can trust.

These are just a number of solutions offered by MWR to help banks overcome the security challenges they are facing.

Energy

Improve your resilience to the cyber threats facing the energy with MWR

A widely cited 2012 report from the World Energy Council acknowledged that the global energy sector is facing a ‘trilemma’, trying to reconcile three problems. These are to ensure future energy cyber security while simultaneously reducing carbon footprint yet keeping consumer bill rises to an acceptable minimum. All are ‘must solves’ that unfortunately also conflict with each other.

These are fundamental issues of high profile political importance, affecting the prosperity and future livelihoods of all. So, it’s easy to understand why cyber security often sits a little further down the roll call of energy company priorities.

Yet vulnerability of energy supply to cyber attack is in fact an urgent issue in its own right that deserves to be at the top of the strategic priority list.

Effective cyber security of energy supplies also affects the other two aspects of the trilemma. Without it, energy providers will be less able to deploy technologies such as smart metering, integration with the Internet of Things (IoT) or ultra-responsive grid switching and management systems. All these are key aspects of reducing emissions and ensuring maximum efficiency for customers.

The trilemma is also set against a background profound technological change for the industry, with ever more Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and services being networked and connected to the internet. These changes are reflected within the consumer sector too, with the IoT revolution heralding an era of new efficiencies and monitoring benefits for domestic energy products, yet also bringing a number of new challenges along with it.

The Cyber Threat

The energy and utilities sector forms a key part of critical national infrastructure, which makes it a high value target for state or non-state actors seeking to gain military or political advantage or cause chaos and disruption. Being able to remotely disrupt a national electricity grid would have devastating effects. Therefore, defending the grid from cyber attack is a core part of ensuring energy security.

While these potential attackers might be seeking to control or disrupt energy supply and distribution, they may also have other motives, such as to cause embarrassment or compromise customer data or transactions. Thus, energy companies face a diverse range of threats that differ both in goals and execution from the traditional threat map.

Energy companies and grid organisations need to be aware of the various cyber threats that face them and accept that their strategic role in society places them in the firing line of some particularly skilled and motivated attackers, including state actors.

Due to the speed of these changes, traditional cyber security measures have been found wanting, as evidenced by the growing level of cyber breaches reported in this sector. Forward-thinking organisations must build on the effective parts of their cyber security programmes with practical solutions in order to stay one step ahead.

In our times, cyber security in the energy sector is not just a strategic issue but also an existential one. Energy companies have become prime targets for attackers, including state and non-state actors. Information security will also define the energy sector’s ability to meet future challenges such as carbon reduction.

Move forward with MWR

MWR provides an ideal security partner for any energy company, oil & gas firm or IoT provider confronted by the specific challenges peculiar to the energy sector. Our research-driven approach provides deeper understanding of attacker methodologies. We have a track record in enabling established businesses to adopt a security culture by delivering security programs that deliver improved business competitiveness. Effective cyber security strategies within the sector need to be fully aligned to your business risk appetite and threat profile. We will review these and ensure that your approach contains some of the following key components:

  • Broad service offering

We offer a range of solutions including Security Assessments for ICS environments; both at the design stage and also for established systems.

For energy product manufacturers, MWR can also assess embedded devices for applications such as home automation or IoT, working with designers and developers to make sure that the product is designed at source to protect its critical assets.

  • Understanding of your estate

In power grids, utility networks and industrial facilities, safety always trumps security. And often where effective security is required, the pressure to maintain uptime means that new features cannot be added to systems deemed too fragile to modify. 

For more traditional security environments within the energy sector, MWR’s Cyber Defence solutions can also secure an energy organisation’s most valuable assets: its customer base and intellectual property. It’s for this reason that we use a threat-based approach to help you build a realistic view of your security posture, adopting programmes that are highly effective in practice.

  • Improved resilience to APT

Experience has taught us that if your business can resist targeted cyber-attacks from advanced nation states, it can resist cyber-attacks from almost all threat actors. The energy sector has seen more than its fair share of targeted attacks that have been attributed to nation state threat actors.

With solutions such as Targeted Attack Simulations and ADCA, delivered by consultants that truly understand the mind of an attacker, your organisation can be safe in the knowledge they are using the most advanced defences to resist the most advanced attackers.

These are just a number of solutions offered by MWR to help firms in the energy sector overcome the security challenges they are facing.

Insurance

Helping insurers tackle the cyber threats facing their industry

The global insurance industry, worth close to $1 trillion annually, is a prime target for cyber attack.

The sheer volume of valuable data created, gathered and stored by insurers presents a number of unique challenges for the sector. From a technical aspect, insurers are under continual pressure to modernise their data systems, facing the conundrum of keeping critical data highly secure yet also instantly available for review and processing.

Not only do insurers possess this treasure trove of sensitive personal information, second only to government, but also increasingly rely on integrated information systems, providing multiple pathways for attack.

The insurance industry is also carrying additional regulatory burdens placed on it as a result of the financial crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning increased overheads and squeezed margins, causing a knock-on effect of decreased investment in key technologies.

The Cyber Threat

In recent years, the insurance industry has been targeted by threat actors, both internal and external, including disaffected employees, organised crime and nation states. Usually the motive is financial gain but may also be to damage reputation and confidence, or to gather client information to allow identity theft and fraud.

The rules are stacked in the attacker’s favour: they don’t have to spend much and be lucky just once to achieve their ends, whereas the industry has to spend much more and be constantly on guard to stay ahead. The consequences of failure can be devastating.

Many large data breaches have occurred in recent years where traditional cyber security measures have been found wanting on these high-profile breaches. Fortunately, MWR is confident that forward-thinking organisations can build on the effective parts of their cyber security programmes with practical solutions in order to stay one step ahead. The response must be based on an up-to-date threat picture alongside a flexible and dynamic risk management strategy.

Move forward with MWR

MWR has been working with insurers over many years, building up deep understanding of the industry’s technology needs, strategic business issues and the specific threats it faces. The actions you take as a business to protect you from the threats you face should flow from your overall cyber security strategy, something that we can use our unique experience to ensure is fully aligned to your business risk appetite and threat profile. Our research-driven approach helps us truly to understand the methodologies of the threat actors targeting the insurance industry. After all, understanding the threat forms the basis for effective counters, meeting each specific threat with a targeted defence. Effective cyber security strategies within the sector include the following key components:

  • Implement Effective Controls

By taking a threat-based approach, MWR can help you build a realistic view of your security posture, adopting programmes that are highly effective in practice.

An example of this is Attack Path Mapping, a unique solution that uses real-world attack methods to determine the risk to your most critical assets, providing your organisation with actionable intelligence that can be used to mitigate risks.

  • Improve resilience to APT

Experience has taught us that if your business can resist targeted cyber attacks from advanced nation states, it can resist cyber attacks from almost all threat actors.

With strategic solutions such as Targeted Attack Simulations and ADCA, delivered by consultants that truly understand the mind of an attacker, insurers can be safe in the knowledge they are using the most advanced defences to resist the most advanced attackers.

Alongside services such as this, we can also author or review your overall cyber security strategy, using our unique experience to ensure it is fully aligned to your business risk appetite and threat profile.

Taking steps to secure your customer and financial data will protect your brand reputation and profitability, so it makes sense to work with an independent security organisation you can trust.

These are just a number of solutions offered by MWR to help insurers overcome the security challenges they are facing.

Technology

Clients developing new technology face near constant attempts to breach their security

As technology proliferates and becomes ever more pervasive and sophisticated, the success of the businesses designing and developing it depends on it being secure both before and after it is taken to market.

Perhaps more than any other sector, the technology sector’s strategic importance in the digital age makes it a target for the most sophisticated and dangerous threat actors: organised crime and nation states.

The prize for most is intellectual property. Significant innovations in software and hardware are worth many billions of dollars to competitors and can save foreign nations years of costly and uncertain research and development. At the same time the cost, both financially and to a company’s reputation, of needing to fix security flaws after release continues to increase.

The Cyber Threat

The technology sector is the target of cyber attacks from a wide range of hostile operators, both internal and external, including organised crime and nation states. In addition to the numerous public breaches of telecoms, hardware, software and technology services companies, MWR has observed persistent, concentrated attempts by nation-states to infiltrate these types of organisations.

This is in most cases due to the intellectual property they may possess as well as the strategic importance a major technology firm may have. There is a perverse asymmetry of expense, in that it typically costs an attacker a small fraction of the spending required to respond to an attack, let alone the risk of long-term damage to the value of the targeted business if the attack is successful.

Technology companies need to be aware of the various threats that face them and accept that their part in society places them in the firing line of some particularly skilled and motivated attackers. These attackers might be less interested in the organisation itself, more in its strategic importance to its host economy, nation or defence sector. Its also not just about the ideas and innovation, the ability for attackers to compromise a new technology once deployed with customers has a huge bearing on the reputation of those who produced it.

The nature of threats to this sector has often meant that where a targeted attack has been conducted, traditional cyber security measures have been found wanting. Forward-thinking organisations must build on the effective parts of their cyber security programmes with practical solutions in order to stay one step ahead. At the same time, they must innovate and take secure products to market to maintain the confidence of increasingly savvy customers.

Move forward with MWR

MWR possesses an understanding of the needs of the technology sector. We are also a technology force in our own right, having developed both proprietary and open source cyber security programs and tools. Our research-driven ‘can we break it’ approach gives us deeper understanding of the methods and tools used by the most dangerous threat actors targeting IT companies. That same understanding helps us to ensure technology is designed and developed with security in mind, reducing the cost of security fixes during a product’s lifetime. Some of the key solutions MWR provide for technology companies are:

  • Through-life Security

Whether you use a more traditional waterfall model or have embraced AGILE, we can help you integrate key security activities to ensure through-life security in your products.

By embedding security review and assurance activities at the heart of your innovation and development processes you can minimise the number of security issues that would otherwise ship with your product. By combining Training, threat modelling, code review and more traditional forms of Security Testing you can support your business in creating successful and secure hardware and software.

  • Improve resilience to APT

Experience has taught us that if your business can resist targeted cyber attacks from advanced nation states, it can resist cyber attacks from almost all threat actors.

With solutions such as Targeted Attack Simulations, Attack Path Mapping and ADCA, delivered by consultants that truly understand the mind of an attacker, your organisation can be safe in the knowledge that you are using the most advanced defences to resist the most advanced attackers. These will ensure that you continue to safeguard your valuable new technology against the most sophisticated threats.

These are just a number of solutions offered by MWR to help technology companies overcome the security challenges they are facing.

Media

Helping clients in the media industry improve their resilience to the cyber threat

The modern media landscape has changed beyond recognition since the 1990s, with the shift to digital introducing a raft of significant changes, including rolling 24-hour news, the rise of the internet and the subsequent decline in print media.

The thirst for knowledge in the internet age means that media companies can only thrive if they are able to maintain output of new content; this means operating a highly resilient infrastructure for those broadcasting television or radio programs and those hosting web services.

The pressure to maintain an ‘always on’ service is set against the background of falling profits in traditional print and broadcast media, meaning losses in those areas often have detrimental effect on investment in both maintenance and new technology.

But despite the apparent fall in value of the written word, one thing that matters above all for most media organisations is reputation. It is essential that the message communicated is allowed to flow to its intended audience – unaltered, true and with complete integrity.

The Cyber Threat

The desire to raise the profile of a cause, to sow the seeds of fear or to sway public opinion is held by a wide range of threat actors including hacktivists, terrorist and nation states. These cyber attackers might be less interested in stealing data, more seeking to stop the organisation operating effectively or humiliate it in the eyes of the world.

The implication is that the media industry is highly likely to face a Computer Network Attack (CNA) in order to disrupt service, using tactics ranging from a rudimentary DDoS, through to highly sophisticated APT campaigns conducted by nation states. The public footprint of media organisations makes them prime targets for visible impact to a wide audience, so threat actors also are looking to piggyback on these organisations’ own communications channels to spread their own message.

Propaganda is alive and well and cyber attack has become an effective tool in its deployment by both state and non-state groups. Whatever their size and sector, media companies need to be aware of the various threats that face them and accept that their part in society has placed them in the sights of some particularly capable groups.

The changing nature of this threat has meant that traditional cyber security measures have been found wanting, as evidenced by the torrent of cyber intrusions reported at media organisations recently. For those organisations looking to protect themselves and stay out of the headlines, MWR encourages them first to build on the effective parts of their cyber security programmes with practical solutions.

Move forward with MWR

In our years serving clients in the media sector, MWR has developed highly-effective security solutions for the sector, enabling organisations to identify their strategic risks, protect their most critical IT components and media assets, as well as maximise the uptime and availability of their services.

  • Work with sector experts

Like media companies, MWR works in a dynamic and fast-changing world, dealing with a myriad of cyber threats and security challenges. Our consultants think like attackers – and are dedicated to finding the weak points in information security systems, breaking them and then putting them back together, far more secure than before.

This means we’re able to provide our media clients with more realistic pictures of how they can come under attack and more advanced ways in which to defend themselves.

  • Improve resilience to APT

The high profile of media companies and propaganda ‘shock’ value of undermining them make them a key target for advanced attackers, dedicated to undermining the information systems on which the modern media industry depends. However, experience has taught us that if your business can resist targeted cyber-attacks from advanced nation states, it can resist cyber-attacks from almost all threat actors.

With solutions such as Targeted Attack Simulations and ADCA, delivered by consultants that truly understand the mind of an attacker, your organisation can be safe in the knowledge they are using the most advanced defences to resist the most advanced attackers.

  • Implement Effective Controls

While smaller media outlets with modest resources make softer victims, it is the larger global organisations, speaking to billions of people that form the prime targets, as extremists seek to piggyback on their worldwide reach to spread their own messages.

Whether you are a global or national media organisation, MWR uses the same threat-based approach to help you build a realistic view of your security posture, adopting programmes that are highly effective in practice.

An example of this is Attack Path Mapping, a unique solution that uses real-world attack methods to determine the risk to your most critical assets, providing your organisation with actionable intelligence that can be used to mitigate risks.

Alongside services such as this, we can also author or review your overall cyber security strategy, using our unique experience to ensure it is fully aligned to your business risk appetite and threat profile.

These are just a number of solutions offered by MWR to help media organisations overcome the security challenges they are facing.

Telecoms

Improve your resilience to the cyber threats facing the telecommunications industry with MWR

Over the last three decades, the world has become amazingly connected, with 6.648 billion smart phone users globally in 2022, which translates to 83.72% of the world’s population.

Without an infrastructure backbone to drive this, this communications revolution simply would not have happened.

But whilst the size of the market has experienced exponential growth, it has also become fiercely competitive.

The insatiable appetite of consumers for internet and mobile services makes the sector incredibly appealing for new entrants, who appear regularly to undercut established companies. In response, many telecommunications companies are seeking to diversify, offering related services to their existing customer base.

For example, cell providers looking to expand their portfolio have identified mobile payments as a key area of opportunity and have attempted to maximise on this by developing mobile payment solutions across the African market. However, this approach poses its own challenges, with additional regulation and legislation around financial products impacting business efficiency and operating margins.

All the while, telcos are under enormous pressure to keep infrastructure resilient while constantly improving and innovating their services – with faster speeds and better cell coverage demanded from customers, along with expectations of lowest possible pricing.

The Cyber Threat

As the sector that drives the flow of communications and data worldwide, telecommunications organisations are clearly seen as a target by those wishing to subvert or exploit critical infrastructure for their own ends.

Nation states are at the top end of the cyber threat scale and should be considered both highly capable and highly motivated. Foreign intelligence agencies have a long history of targeting comms providers for eavesdropping and information gathering. Nor should the growing threat of Computer Network Attack (CNA) be underestimated. This is also true of other highly political groups such as terrorists or activists, who seek to disrupt any communications infrastructure seen as important to meeting their agendas.

The sector is also becoming a growing target for organised criminals, particularly with telcos who have diversified into financial products. MWR have observed criminal groups who historically targeted banks, now adapting to attack telcos with the same techniques used in the financial sector.

This constantly changing cyber threat landscape means traditional security measures have been found wanting, as evidenced by the torrent of cyber breaches reported regularly. Forward-thinking organisations must build on the effective parts of their cyber security programmes with practical solutions in order to stay one step ahead.

In a margin-squeezed marketplace, many telcos are finding themselves in the difficult position of having to reprioritise security spending but given the very real cyber threats to the sector, careful thought should be given before doing so.

Move forward with MWR

Using the research–led approach that allows us to understand and respond to the cyber threats to this sector, MWR has been successfully advising telcos for a number of years. In this time, we have developed highly-effective security solutions for the sector, enabling organisations to embrace new technologies, identify strategic risks and protect their most critical IT components.

  • Work with sector experts

Along with a true understanding of the cyber threat to the sector, MWR has experience across the telco industry, working with and understanding the strategic needs for a range of clients.

Our experience within the financial services sector perfectly positions us to advise telcos looking to diversify into financial products.

  • Improve resilience to APT

Experience has taught us that if your business can resist targeted cyber-attacks from advanced nation states, it can resist cyber-attacks from almost all threat actors.

With solutions such as Targeted Attack Simulations and ADCA, delivered by consultants that truly understand the mind of an attacker, your organisation can be safe in the knowledge that you are using the most advanced defences to resist the most advanced attackers.

  • Implement Effective Controls

By taking a threat-based approach, MWR can help you build a realistic view of your security posture, adopting programmes that are highly effective in practice.

An example of this is Attack Path Mapping delivered via our Cyber Defence practice, a unique solution that uses real-world attack methods to determine the risk to your most critical assets, providing your organisation with actionable intelligence that can be used to mitigate risks.

Alongside services such as this, MWR can also author or review your overall cyber security strategy, using our unique experience to ensure it is fully aligned to your business risk appetite and threat profile.

These are just a number of solutions that MWR offers to telcos looking to overcome the security challenges they face.