Ransomware attacks are a real risk for banks and financial institutions, which are suffering from a transformation gap where their security measures lag behind their complex IT infrastructures, the data protection firm said.

The rising threat of ransomware means that banks have to ensure that their data protection strategies measure up with their digital transformation plans, Veritas' Justin Loh, told finews.asia.

Loh's comments come on the heels of reports that Temasek-backed fintech unicorn Pine Labs is a victim of the BlackMatter ransomware group, which added the India-focused merchant payments platform to its victim list. The incident has affected multiple financial institutions using Pine Labs services across India, including HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.

According to darkweb monitoring platform «Cyble,» the attack exposed details including service and other private agreements between multiple Indian banks/institutions and Pine Labs, multiple financial reports, and over 500,000 unique records of contact information that include names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Rising Threat 

Ransomware attacks have seen an uptick in 2021, with global attack volume increasing by 151 percent for the first six months of the year as compared with the year-ago half, according to a report by «SonicWall.»

Just last week, global consultancy and technology giant Accenture was struck by a cyberattack, during which more than 6 terabytes of data were stolen, with ransomware gang Lockbit claiming responsibility and demanding $50 million in ransom.

«To enhance resiliency against ransomware, it is critical for companies to first know what data exists in the system so that the right policies can be applied to protect the data,» Loh, who is Veritas' Singapore country director, said.

Staying Ahead of the Game

«For banks and financial institutions that are data stewards of highly confidential information, the ability to detect abnormal access to data, flag it as a potential incident for investigation and respond quickly to isolate any malicious virus, will help them to stay one step ahead of the game,» Loh said.

«If all else fails and there is any compromise, the banks and financial institutions need to look at how to recover and continue to operate with minimum disruption, while managing the potential data leaks in parallel,» he added.