Investment bank strengthen cyber security with multi-million pound boost

The CEO of JPMorgan has said that the company plans to increase its cyber security expenditure by 100% after it suffered a data leak affecting close to 85 million accounts.

Jamie Dimon spoke in Washington at the  Institute of International Finance conference last week, where he talked about the firm’s increased digital investment.

He said that the company will increase its spending from £156m this year to £311m in 2019, and explained further that the firm needs to implement more preventative measures, as cyber security issues will not go away overnight.

JPMorgan was affected by a breach in August on its JPMorgan.com and Chase.com websites, in addition to its JPMorgan and Chase apps. Cyber criminals acquired account names, postal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of 76 million customers, as well seven million businesses, after employees’ credentials were compromised via a phishing email.

Investigators have found that a minimum of 13 other businesses have come under the radar of hackers. Many feel that a nation-state may be behind the attacks.

Fidelity Investments also confessed that it has been targeted, but both Fidelity and JPMorgan have said that no financial data was compromised.

It took a breach to make JPMorgan realise the importance of cyber security, but the investment it plans demonstrates just how crucial it is in the protection of data. SMEs are looking at much smaller numbers in protecting their own systems and data. Opening up cyber security jobs to qualified professionals would be a great place for them to start.