Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd., a leading provider of cyber security solutions globally, reveals that the Finance and Banking sector in Indonesia is the 2nd most attacked industry in the country, climbing from 3rd position in 2021. On average, financial institutions in Indonesia were attacked 2,730 times per week the last 6 months, 252% more than the global average at 1,083 attacks. Globally, the Finance and Banking sector ranks 6th in the most attacked industry.

“Indonesia’s higher attack rates as compared to global statistics simply mean attackers are more successful in the country. When an attacker finds a way to trick users or compromise systems, they will expand their operations quickly to take advantage of the vulnerability before the industry can react,” shares Deon Oswari, Country Manager, Indonesia, Check Point Software Technologies. “In the case of Indonesia, Check Point Research is seeing increased attacks on its mobile banking platforms and applications. It is critical that the banking industry be vigilant and review their best practices. The more you know about the threats and risks out there, the better FSI companies are placed to be able to take action and implement controls.”

Just earlier this year, the Central Bank of Indonesia announced that their network were hit by a ransomware attack. Threat actors stole non-critical data concerning the bank's employees before encrypting the systems. Well-known hacker group, Conti Ransomware has claimed the attack after leaking part of the allegedly stolen files. 

In order for ransomware to work, cybercriminals first need to gain access to a target system, encrypt the files and then demand a ransom from the victim. One of the ways to infiltrate the system is through phishing emails — one the most common delivery mechanisms for ransomware. In fact, Check Point Research found out that 92% of the malicious files in Indonesia were delivered via Email in the last 30 days. All it takes is one uninformed employee clicking on a link in a malicious email, and it can hold an entire company hostage.

"In the current climate of ransomware, supply chain attacks and the constant fight against new evolved malware, threat intelligence and rapid response capabilities are vital. Comprehensive intelligence to proactively eliminate threats, managed security services to monitor your network, and incident response capabilities to quickly respond to and resolve attacks, are all crucial to keeping your business up and running in 2022,” continued Mr. Oswari.

This is echoed by the Indonesia government. The Financial Services Authority of Indonesia (OJK) has called out to the financial services industry since 2021 to improve their information technology governance and risk management. OJK also revealed a roadmap for the Indonesia banking development through 2025, made to support the future of digital banking, and strengthen the legal and policy fundamentals of cybersecurity.

Mr Oswari adds "Many companies attempt to build their security using a patchwork of single-purpose products from multiple vendors, but often fail and are left with security gaps caused by disjointed technologies. This approach also produces a huge overhead because it relies on working with multiple systems and vendors instead of one integrated solution." 

Check Point Software recommends these principles to follow for the businesses to stay cyber safe:

• Maintain security hygiene: Make sure up-to-date security patches are maintained across all systems and software. Networks should be segmented, applying strong firewall and IPS safeguards between the network segments in order to contain infections from propagating across the entire network. Consider tools like Check Point CloudGuard to provide unified cloud native security across all your assets and workloads, across multi-clouds, giving organisations confidence to automate security, prevent threats and manage posture-at cloud speed and scale.

• Principle of Least Privilege: User and software privileges should be kept to a minimum – is there really a need for all users to have local admin rights on their PCs

• Adopt a prevention approach: Not only can attacks be blocked, but they can be prevented, including zero-day attacks and unknown malware. With the right technologies in place, the majority of attacks, even the most advanced ones can be prevented without disrupting the normal business flow.

• Cover all attack vectors: Including networks, mobile, cloud, endpoints, and IoT. In fact, Indonesia has seen high adoption of digital banking in recent years—about 78% of Indonesians who are banking customers, use digital banking actively, a drastic increase from 57% in 2017. Coupled with the fact that Check Point Research has been observing a rise in the number of mobile-related attacks as well as entirely new attack vectors, it is imperative for businesses to consider suitable Mobile Security solution to protect the company’s assets and customer data.

• Keep your threat intelligence up to date: Keep your business up and running with comprehensive intelligence to proactively stop threats. Manage security services to monitor your network and incident response to quickly respond to and resolve attacks.

Lastly, adopting a consolidated security approach like Check Point Infinity architecture and services, financial institutions can realise preemptive protection against advanced fifth-generation attacks while achieving a 50% increase in operational efficiency and a 20% reduction in security costs.