Financial service providers act reactively

Accordingly, one in two (48%) of the financial service providers surveyed limits the damage to the customer in the event of fraud, but does not take any preventive measures to prevent such incidents before they occur. And 29% of the companies surveyed consider simply reacting to cases of fraud to be cheaper and more effective than taking preventive measures to avoid fraud.

If a case of fraud occurs in connection with customer accounts, only 41% of the institutions surveyed take all necessary measures to prevent such attacks in the future. A good third of the companies (36%) analyze the vulnerabilities exploited by the cybercriminals, and 38% reimburse customers for the losses suffered. Two-thirds of the financial companies surveyed (66%) are trying to find out who is behind the attacks.

Tackling causes instead of symptoms

"If only the damage is limited in the case of cyber fraud, it's like treating only the symptoms in a patient, but not the causes of his illness," explains Holger Suhl, General Manager DACH at Kaspersky Lab. "As a result, the symptoms will recur and the disease will continue to worsen. Many of the world's leading banks have already recognized this and implemented basic measures to prevent cyber fraud. Alarmingly, however, many other institutions continue to rely on reactive handling of fraud. In the process, cybercriminals are becoming more inventive in their attack methods every year, which tells us the cases ,Luuuk' from the past and ,CarbanakThis year's 'fraud' was a clear demonstration of this. If banks do not take preventive measures, the number of fraud cases and the financial damage is likely to continue to rise."

The survey was conducted by B2B International on behalf of Kaspersky Lab in 2015. More than 5,000 decision-makers from companies and organizations in 26 countries were surveyed, including 131 banks and online payment service providers.