Cyber security training is the top priority within finance

Educating employees on best practices regarding cyber security should be the top priority for the finance sector, according to a recent poll of chief information security officers (CISOs) in the industry.

The survey, conducted by the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), found that employee training is the biggest priority for improving security, accounting for 35 per cent of the vote.

Other high priorities were infrastructure upgrades and network defence (25 per cent) and breach prevention (17 per cent).

The report is aimed at helping leaders and businesses understand global cyber security trends and further stressed that cyber security should now be a matter for the boardroom as much as the server room.

It added that employee training was a priority mainly for CISOs reporting into a non-technical function, like the chief operations officer or the general counsel.

The FS-ISAC’s report recommended that training employees should be a priority for all CISOs, regardless of reporting structure because employees serve as the first line of defence.

This training should include awareness around downloading and executing unknown applications on company devices and educating employees on how to report suspicious emails and attachments.