More than 100 Financial Services Firms Hit with DDoS Extortion Attacks

Industry-Wide Cross Border Cyber Intelligence Sharing Mitigated Impact

SINGAPORE – Media Outreach – 10 February 2021 – FS-ISAC,
the only global cyber intelligence sharing community solely focused on
financial services, announced today that last year, more than 100 financial
services firms were targets of a wave of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
extortion attacks conducted by the same threat actor. The criminals sent
extortion notes threatening to disrupt the firms’ websites and digital
services. The threat actor methodically moved across jurisdictions in Europe,
North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific, hitting dozens of institutions
within weeks. They targeted the full gamut of financial services companies:
banks, fintechs, exchanges, card issuers, payments companies, insurance
companies, credit bureaus, asset managers, money transfer companies, and
payroll companies. 

 

DDoS Attacks by Sub-Vertical
Retail Banking	41%
Exchange	15%
Payments	13%
Securities & Investments	10%
Insurance	7%
Critical Utility	3%
Credit Reporting Agency and Ratings	2%
Core Back Office Supplier	1%

 

DDoS Attacks by Region
North America (Us, Canada)	43%
Europe, UK, Middle East & Africa	38%
Asia	15%
Latin America	3%

 

FS-ISAC credits its members’ willingness to share cyber
intelligence with mitigating the impact and threat for the financial services
industry. Members were able to keep up with the rapid pace of attacks using the
FS-ISAC Intelligence Exchange’s secure chat and intelligence sharing
capabilities, which enables industry collaboration and discussion in real
time. 

To increase industry-wide cross-border cyber intelligence
sharing, FS-ISAC launched the Global
Leaders award program.
This is a company effort to elevate the profiles of members in the
financial services community who actively share cyber intelligence and best
practices across borders. 

“Today’s cyber criminals know no borders. An attack on a
bank in Asia could be a harbinger for an attack on an insurance company in the
US, a stock exchange in Latin America, or a fintech in Europe,” said Teresa Walsh, Global Head of Intelligence
at FS-ISAC. “This wave of attacks has shown how critical global cyber
intelligence sharing is. Members sharing specific details of attacks enable
other members to prepare and defend against them, lowering the return on
investment for threat actors. Our Global Leaders program builds on these
network effects by elevating those who share to benefit the entire community.”

The attacks have slowed but the recent boom in
cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which cyber criminals use to demand payment,
could incentivize other attacks.

“In 2021, we have already seen new cyber threats in the form
of supply chain attacks, which we can expect to proliferate and evolve quickly.
The only way to stay ahead of these ever more sophisticated threat actors is to
collaborate,” said Jerry Perullo, CISO
at ICE/NYSE and FS-ISAC Chairman of the Board. “Now more than ever, we need
Global Leaders to model what effective sharing looks like to the rest of our
community as well as the industry at large.”

To learn more about the Global Leaders program visit fsisac.com/globalleaders.