Information Security Threats to the Banking Industry

To start off with I chose to go with our banking or financial industry. The banking industry is constantly getting attacked by various methods on a daily basis. I chose this industry because I happen to know someone who works in the security sector at Wells Fargo Bank, he was a good person to get information on what he sees on a daily or weekly basis. This paper is the opinion of myself and with gathered information from various resources.
The three main threats that face the banking industry are; Organized crime targeting financial institutions, Assault on Authentication, Malware. There are other threats that financial institutions are facing such as; Increased insider threat, Mobile Banking Attacks, and Telephone based fraud. The banking industry is facing more and more threats each day as they become more and more dependent on electronic media, this includes mobile banking, web based banking, atm machines, and any kind of information system that the bank is using. With the rise in technology and banking adapting to the technology banks become vulnerable and constantly have to keep up to date on all security measures and sometimes even invent new ways of protecting the banks data as well as its customers data.
The potential risks involved if any of these threats are ever used on the banking industry's computer systems, could be wide spread. The bank or banks could lose all information on all transactions that have happened, they could also lose customers personal information, money could be rerouted to a different bank or person, wide spread identity theft would be a major issue. There are so many things that could happen if a banks information systems were ever breeched that most banks cringe at the thought of this ever happening. In most cases the...