Financial industry top loser in cybersecurity

Cybersecurity risks represent the biggest challenge to businesses, which typically suffer billions of dollars in losses globally, according to Davis Kallukaran, President of the Association of certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) — Oman Chapter.

“Trillions will be stolen, most without detection by the emerging master criminal of the 21st Century — the cyber space offender,” he said, quoting criminal justice scholar Gene Stephens from his seminar article on the theme, ‘Crime in Cyber Spaces’ published in 1995. “It is our responsibility to reach the message to the general public in all its seriousness,” Kallukaran noted in welcome remarks at the opening of a seminar on the theme, ‘Operations & Cybersecurity Risks’, held at the College of Banking and Financial Studies (CBFS) in Bausher on Tuesday

Dr Hamad bin Salim al Rawahi, Executive President of the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA), inaugurated the seminar.

According to a report in the Financial Express, the impact of cybercrime can be greatly damaging to a business in terms of cost on account of disruption of trading, loss of reputation, theft of corporate information and so on. In the United States, 73 per cent of net surfers have fallen prey to cybercrime.

Cybercrime affects the society in different ways — it is a criminal act! According to a report by Symantec, more than 1.5 million people fall victim to cybercrime everyday ranging from simple password theft to extensive monetary swindles with an average cost of $197 per victim.

This adds up to more than $110 billion lost to cybercrime worldwide every year.