By Dave Tripier, CMO at IronKey

Over the last eighteen months, the global banking system has been faced with new huge security challenges.  Both financial institutions and businesses alike have been battling the poor economy in hopes of recovering from the recession but are now faced with a new threat of thieves stealing clients’ funds and affecting reputations. Through large scale phishing attacks, global cyber crime organizations have been successfully stealing millions from consumers. This usually involves many, sometimes even thousands of, low value transactions. However high tech criminal gangs are shifting focus and targeting the more lucrative corporate bank accounts of public and private sector organizations.  Crimes that many estimate could tally over $1 billion this year.

The Ponemon Institute’s 2010 Business Banking Trust survey recently disclosed that 80 percent of banks did not pick up on fraud until after funds had already been transferred out of their institution. Even more distressing is that 57 percent of businesses that have faced fraud attacks did not receive full compensation for their bank’s error. It’s reported that small to medium sized businesses lose between $100,000 - $200,000 (even as high as $3 million) during a single commercial account takeover. The following article provides an overview of how organized cyber crime rings are now targeting corporate banking transactions and provides valuable information on helping banks and businesses confront this new threat.