All news

Sberbank head: Share of cybercrime in financial sector reaches 98.5%

Despite the fact that the number of cybercrimes is estimated at millions, the number of convictions for such acts does not exceed a few dozen people, Sberbank head noted

MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The share of cybercrime in the financial sector reached 98.5% in 2016, Head of Sberbank Herman Gref said during a press conference in TASS.

"Last year, cybercrime accounted for 98.5% of crimes in the financial sector, 1.5% - crime committed by traditional methods," he said.

Despite the fact that the number of cybercrimes is estimated at millions, the number of convictions for such acts does not exceed a few dozen people, Head of Sberbank said. According to him, this is due to an acute shortage of specialists with the necessary competence in the financial sector, as well as imperfection of the regulatory framework.

"If you look at specialists who are investigating cybercrimes, the majority of employees of the investigative authorities are engaged in solving traditional crimes. They either try to investigate cybercrime by conventional methods, and it is a waste of time and money," Gref said.

According to Head of Sberbank, training programs for law enforcement specialists should be radically revised.

Representative of the Cybercrime Department of the Russian Interior Ministry Alexander Vurasko said earlier in an interview with TASS that the number of cybercrimes in the financial sector is increasing annually by 20 - 30%. "Almost every year we see cybercrime in the financial sector growing by 20 - 30%," he said.

Earlier Russia’s Federal Security Service said that it received information on preparation of massive cyber attacks by foreign services starting from December 5, 2016 to destabilize Russia’s financial system.

In November 2016, Russia’s Sberbank has refuted a series of powerful DDoS attacks organized from dozens of countries on Tuesday.

"On November 8, Sberbank’s online resources came under powerful DDoS attacks. Attacks were organized from botnets that include tens of thousands of machines territorially spread across several dozens of countries," the bank’s press service told TASS adding that the intensity of attacks increased throughout the day.

Sberbank head Herman Gref said earlier that the damage from cyber attacks in the world will at least double, reaching $1 trillion by 2020.