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Financial firms are struggling to keep up with cybercrime, says Accenture

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Accenture has published its ninth study into the cost of cybercrime, in collaboration with the Ponemon Institute research consultancy, and its report – ‘Unlocking the Value of Improved Cybersecurity Protection – found that banks, capital markets firms and insurers spent an average of $18.5m per company in an attempt to combat cybercrime in 2018. That was 40% more than the average spend across other industries, according to Accenture – which surveyed 355 companies across 16 industries in 11 countries.  “Even though cyber breach levels at financial services firms are close to or lower than the cross-industry average, the financial services industry continually has the highest cost of cybercrime,” said Chris Thompson, global security and resilience lead for financial services at Accenture Security. The report found that the number of financial firms fully deploying automation, AI and machine learning, cyber analytics and automated policy management was “far too low”, suggesting that financial services are “struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of new technologies.”  Thompson added: “More prudent technology investments at the right spending levels would actually reduce costs while improving banks’ and insurers’ overall cybersecurity resilience. These cost savings are crucial for financial services executives trying to decide how much to spend on security versus other key areas, such as their overall digital transformation.”