The Middle East’s financial sector is increasingly a target for sophisticated cyberattacks, driven by numerous factors. Mobile financial services, online transactions, and emerging technologies like AI and cloud computing have expanded potential attack surfaces. As a result, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, cybersecurity ranks among the top five global threats over the next two years, with banking systems as key targets.
For cybersecurity professionals working within the sector, the pressure doesn’t end there. New data protection laws, such as the three new policies being developed by the UAE Cybersecurity Council on “cloud computing and data security”, “Internet of Things security”, and “cybersecurity operations centres” demand that financial institutions rigorously protect customer data. However, the increasing sophistication of attacks, driven by AI, often outpaces the requirements of such regulations, let alone the time taken for them to come into force.
All this creates significant pressure on financial institutions to establish a best practice for themselves that enables them to secure their operations, reduce vulnerabilities and maintain consumer trust.
The Role of Regulations in Cybersecurity
Regulations heavily influence the financial sector’s cybersecurity strategies, often focusing on risk management. However, while threats evolve quickly, regulations tend to lag, and take time to develop.
Traditional corporate security teams can no longer prevent breaches as swiftly as attackers compromise systems, and monitoring tools have limited ability to stop a threat. That’s because the time it takes for attackers to compromise and exfiltrate data is now quicker than the time it takes for an organisation to remediate, which is typically 4-6 days.
With the average data breach now costing around $4.45 million, financial institutions need a proactive cybersecurity strategy, not one that is reactive to regulation alone, including investment in advanced technologies to quickly detect and neutralise threats.
Financial institutions should only view regulatory requirements as a foundational baseline, rather than a comprehensive basis for defence. Within the financial sector, more than any other, proactive, threat-based strategies are essential.
AI: Both a Threat and a Solution
AI is reshaping business functions in financial services, enhancing the customer experience and operational efficiency, but it also introduces new security risks. Today, attackers are using AI for reconnaissance, social engineering, malicious code development and more. These tactics accelerate attacks, making them harder to combat with traditional cybersecurity measures.
Even within the security department it has become a double-edged sword, aiding both cybercriminals and defenders. While many organisations adopt AI to improve operations, the technology also expands attack surfaces, allowing cybercriminals to automate and scale attacks.
By consolidating security products and shifting to a platform approach, AI-driven cybersecurity solutions can be best utilised to help institutions detect and respond to threats in real time, protect data and be more agile in response to incoming regulation.
Communicating Cybersecurity Needs
In order to put the right solutions in place, security teams first need trust and investment and that means taking the cyber challenge to the board. C-level leaders in the financial sector often underestimate their cyber-resilience and so effective communication from CISOs and CTOs about cybersecurity risks and investment needs is essential.
Maintaining trust is critical for any business that holds sensitive, personal or critical data. Where financial services institutions do rely on reputation, any investment in cyber is a good investment. It means a reduction in risk from cyber attacks, which do carry financial implications, in addition to the fact that an effective security posture carries the potential for funds to be released from a businesses cyber insurance policy.
In the digital financial landscape, robust cybersecurity measures safeguard reputation, customer trust, and operational continuity. As digital transformation continues at pace, banks and other financial entities must embed security into every aspect of their operations – turning investments in AI and cybersecurity innovations into competitive advantages.
