JPMorgan Chase faces 45 billion daily cyber attack attempts
JPMorgan Chase, the US's largest bank in terms of assets, is currently battling a staggering 45 billion daily hacking attempts, which is twice the number from last year. This alarming increase underscores the growing cybersecurity threats faced by the bank and other major Wall Street institutions. Mary Callahan Erdoes, the head of JPMorgan Chase's asset and wealth management division, shared this information at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Bank invests $15 billion annually in cybersecurity
To strengthen its defenses against cybercrimes, JPMorgan Chase spends $15 billion annually and employs a massive workforce of 62,000 technologists. Erdoes explained, "We have more engineers than Google or Amazon. Why? Because we have to." She added that "the fraudsters get smarter, savvier, quicker, more devious and more mischievous." Banks in the US and Europe have experienced a surge in cyber attacks in recent years, with some attributing the rise to Russian hackers retaliating for sanctions imposed after Ukraine's invasion.
Here's what JPMorgan said
JPMorgan also shed light on Erdoes's statements about hacking attempts on the company. "Ms. Erdoes was referring to observed activity collected from our technology assets, malicious or not. This activity is then processed by our monitoring infrastructure," said Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesperson for JPMorgan. "Examples of activity can include user log-ins like employee virtual desktops, and scanning activity, which are often highly automated and not targeted," he added.
AI acceleration raises concerns for regulators
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. Gita Gopinath, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, voiced her concerns about hackers utilizing AI during the same panel discussion. She stated, "Given the uncertainty about the scale of the impact of this technology and the way it is evolving, policy could be playing catchup." Gopinath also cautioned that a significant "big event" might occur before a solution is found to tackle cybersecurity challenges.
Cyber attacks are the biggest risk to banking sector
A recent survey of financial institutions by the Bank of England found that they believe cyber attacks to be the biggest systematic risk to the banking sector. On a related note, during a survey of bank executives by KPMG in 2023, over 70% pointed to cybersecurity being a major concern for them.
