Protections Against Digital Bank Robbers

Bonnie and Clyde are a thing of the past. Bank robberies have declined in the past several years, a function in part of improved security measures. Instead, criminals have turned to robbing banks digitally, resulting in the Federal Reserve and other agencies calling on banks to beef up their cybersecurity. 

On October 19th, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office for Comptroller of the Currency issued notice of proposed rules that heighten cybersecurity requirements for large and interconnected entities. Additionally, there is a proposed tiered system that would further enhance the obligations of entities designated as critical to the financial sector. The proposed standards touch five areas of cybersecurity—cyber risk governance; cyber risk management; internal dependency management; external dependency management; and incident response, cyber resilience, and situational awareness. Comments on the proposed rules are due by January 17, 2017.

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In late August, a terrorist group publicly used digital currency for the first time. The Ibn Taymiyya Media Center, an online jihadist propaganda unit based out of the Gaza strip added the ability to pay in bitcoin to their fundraising drive, according to Yaya Fanusie, the director of analysis for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance. In January, Europol reported that despite third-party reports, law enforcement had not observed terrorists using bitcoin.

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