More than three billion people around the world use social media each month, with 90 percent of those users accessing their chosen platforms via mobile devices. While, historically, financial services (FinServ) institutions discouraged the use of social media, it has become a channel that can no longer be ignored.
FinServ organizations and their customers are migrating to social networks, collaboration tools and mobile networks to engage and support customers, recruit new employees and drive business development. Today, three out of four banking customers surveyed agree or strongly agree that social media is important to their banks, with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram being the most popular platforms. However, few FinServ security teams incorporate these numerous threat vectors and data sources into their threat model. Taking advantage of the limited visibility and control these institutions possess to detect and remediate these risks, cybercriminals happily exploit these social and digital channels where vulnerable businesses and customers engage.
In this paper, ZeroFox and ThreatQuotient explore the most prevalent types of threats and scams targeting Financial Services organizations over social media and digital channels and provide a checklist to help security teams mitigate risk to their institution, brands, employees and customers.