State of Online Security in Financial Institutions in Asia - 2008

ReadiMinds is pleased to announce the results of its maiden Asian online security survey titled "State of Online Security in Financial Institutions in Asia - 2008". This is arguably Asia's first such survey. Survey* respondents represented cross section of Asia's major banks. The study primarily focused on the issues pertaining to online identity theft and online financial frauds.

Key findings of this survey are:

• Over 25% of banks reported to have been the victims of phishing during the last one year.
• Over 60% of banks still do not have dedicated budget for online security. Online security is still part of the IT budget.
• Software based 2FA [including phone factor] seems to be gaining increasing popularity over the traditional hardware security devices for 2FA. 20% of respondents seems to have already adopted it - a growing trend among the financial institutions. Among the recent implementers of stronger online security, over 30% have adopted risk based approach.
• Only 20% of respondent banks have a formal plan in place for creating customer awareness against online identity theft and financial frauds.
• Identity management and/or fraud prevention, risk management, regulatory compliance and disaster recovery are the top security agendas for 2008 for Asian banks.
• Only 20% of banks were found to have implemented any form of stronger online security.
• Online security is a business issue. There is increasing awareness of the importance of online security. Among the banks that have implemented stronger online security, 40% of them have a dedicated CISO now.
• 100% of respondents were aware that integrating Stronger User Authentication, with Fraud Detection, and Risk Based Transaction Authorization is the strongest form of defence against Online Identity Theft, MITM attacks and Financial Frauds. It seems there is increasing desire to take holistic approach to transaction security.
• Awareness of the impact of online security incidents seems quite low though. 75% of respondents were not well aware of the impact of online security incidents in their own banks.

*Note to Editor: ReadiMinds conducted this survey during the month of June, 2008. Countries covered are Singapore, Hongkong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Vietnam and Combodia.

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