The SWIFT Institute has published three new working papers, each aiming to contribute towards the establishment of better cyber defences for the financial industry. The research papers focus on enabling financial institutions to get ahead and stay ahead of their cyber adversaries by providing a better understanding of the actors involved, examining a means to effectively share threat information, and establishing common terminology to allow meaningful discussions between industry stakeholders.

>See also: 10 ways cyber security will evolve in the face of growing threats

As cyber security threats continue to grow, the financial services industry needs to understand the forces at work, identify patterns of behaviour, and create a common syntax around cyber security to facilitate better communication. In order to help organisations better equip themselves against cyber attacks, the SWIFT Institute issued three grants on cyber security; the resulting three research papers are now available:

“Forces Shaping the Cyber Threat Landscape for Financial Institutions” by William A. Carter, aims to provide an understanding of the forces that shape the threat landscape in the belief that this is essential for financial institutions to get ahead and stay ahead of their adversaries in cyberspace.

>See also: Resolving the cyber security crisis of confidence

“The Cyber Security Ecosystem: Defining a Taxonomy of Existing, Emerging and Future Cyber Threats”, by Dr Jason Ferdinand with Richard Benham, attempts to establish a common language for cybersecurity to help all organisations deal with the cyber threats in their environment, and to enable meaningful discussion of these threats within and between organisations.

“Sharing Insider Threat Indicators: Examining the Potential Use of SWIFT’s Messaging Platform to Combat Cyber Fraud”, by Elizabeth M. Petrie and Casey D. Evans, focuses on identifying the patterns of behaviour typically indicative of efforts by criminals to use insiders to cash out on fraudulent activity.

The objective of this research is to enable organisations to use an existing telecommunication platform, such as SWIFT, to communicate cyber fraud threat information by establishing indicators of cash-out behaviour, which could warn of cyber fraud activity.

>See also: Cyber security in 2020: boosting protection with traps and tripwires

“As cyber threats become increasingly prevalent within the financial services industry, firms are having to step up their cyber defences,” said Peter Ware, Director of the SWIFT Institute.

“It is only by collaborating as an industry that we will be in a stronger position to mitigate these threats. It is our hope to eventually build on this published research to more effectively recognise forces at play, to establish a common language, and to build tools that will identify patterns of behaviour. All this will better enable the useful dissemination of threat activity reports to the wider financial community.”