Is your account safe? Internet thieves target one bank a week

COMPUTER hackers carried out at least one cyberattack against banks and other lenders every week last year.

Figures from the Financial Conduct Authority, the City watchdog, showed there were 89 attacks against firms it regulates last year, compared with five in 2014.

The massive surge came as the country’s biggest banks were accused of covering up the threat to customers in an attempt to protect their reputations.

Cyber- crime is seen by many senior bankers as the single biggest danger faced by their industry. Attacks on lenders cost consumers an estimated £8billion last year, up 122 per cent on 2015, according to the security firm ThreatMetrix.

But when the Mail asked the six largest banks and building societies how many threats they have thwarted since the start of this year, they all declined to comment.

Campaigners said customers were being left in the dark, making it impossible to tell how safe online banking is.

Justin Modray, of the advice group Candid Money, said: ‘Customers should be free to see the extent of the problems and judge how secure or otherwise the bank might be.’

HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays, Santander and NatWest owner royal Bank of Scotland all declined to comment, as did Nationwide building society.

Several lenders cited commercial confidentiality as a reason for staying silent. One insider suggested revealing information might encourage further attacks.

Few details of the problem’s scale exist, although the Bank of England said 28 per cent of the firms it oversees consider cyber-attacks as among their biggest threats.

The FCA’s figures were only revealed in a little-reported speech from April.

Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘This is a huge issue. The public have every right to know just how much of a threat there is and the banks should be honest about the problem.’

it comes at a time when banks are encouraging customers to use their services online while closing branches.

James daley, of the consumer group Fairer Finance, said: ‘Banks need to be doing more to reassure customers it’s safe to use their websites.

‘it’s weak to hide behind commercial confidentiality. if they were forced to publish this stuff, it would give them a real incentive to get it right.’

The FCA is considering plans to force banks to publish details of major security incidents in quarterly updates.