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A comprehensive survey by Singapore-based software firm ReadiMinds on the state of online security in Middle Eastern financial institutions has found that fraud is still a major concern in the region.
While internal fraud is a top security problem in the Middle East, external frauds have now been recognised as the fastest growing area of online fraud here. Risks are magnified by the fact that 75 per cent of the survey respondents, representing a cross section of the region's major banks, rated their own institution's ability to counter online security threats as only 'average'.
ReadiMinds CEO Naren Nagpal said: "We have seen marked improvement in awareness of challenges posed by online threats - some of it is probably the result of a couple of high-profile regional fraud cases widely reported in the media during the year. It seems the region mostly uses basic channel-wise transaction security primarily targeted for identity theft, as opposed to prevent broader online frauds."
Almost all the survey respondents reported that their financial institutions were victims of online fraud during 2009, with improper hiring practices, easy access to systems and staff dissatisfaction being chosen as the top three contributing factors.
