The struggle of cybersecurity

HONG KONG — With the ever-evolving digital landscape comes opportunities for business growth and reap the benefits operating in such an environment. However, this also provides added risks for these companies especially in the aspect of cybersecurity. 

This threat is not new to financial institutions who work around the clock to ensure the protection of thousands of their client data.

In a Fireside Chat session at the Asian Financial Forum (AFF) on Wednesday, experts from the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) discussed the cybersecurity challenges in their respective fields.

Todd Stewart, Regional Chief Information Security officer for HSBC Asia Pacific, provided insights from the bank's sophisticated threat intelligence monitoring program. 

“Every year, we do an analysis of our biggest cyber threats. So for the last three years, ransomware has hit number one for three years. But what has changed is the methods that apply those tactics," he said.

Stewart cited an example of this adaptation by way of “sideloaded” applications or applications not downloaded from official platforms such as Apple’s AppStore or Google’s Play Store.  

“In Singapore, we've had an issue with sideload apps where people are downloading their mobile banking applications from untrusted sources. And this actually has malware contained within it," he said.

He also shared that this phenomenon is also being observed in neighboring countries like Hong Kong.

For his part, Nelson Chan, head of Banking Go-To-Market for Asia-Pacific and Japan at AWS, acknowledged that change, in whatever industry, is constant and inevitable.

He cited customers as a prime example of change as they continue to move towards digital services in their daily lives. But, Chan also pointed out that even those engaging in criminal or fraudulent activity are also changing and evolving to match the digitalization of the world.

"They've got different tools. They've got more and more tools that's easier to get their hands on those things," Chan said.

"And so they're evolving and proactively going up with money. No surprises there," he continued.

Given this, Chan said that