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By Jo Best, 24 May 2004 16:00

NEWS With billions of pounds at stake, security is one of the biggest concerns for banks and financial institutions. So why have 83 of the top 100 been compromised?

According to Deloitte's annual Global Security Survey, hackers are keener than ever to try and breach banks' defences but around a quarter of the institutions queried said their security budget growth was "flat".

The money-cautious approach to security may be a false economy – of those institutions that had suffered a breach, 40 per cent had experienced financial loss because of it and 13 per cent had "fully deployed antivirus measures", the report said.

The report shows the security situation has declined over the last two years. In 2002, 39 per cent of the institutions had been breached and last year, 96 per cent were thoroughly deploying their antivirus measures.

The bigger institutions come off best in the security stakes, being more likely to have a more mature security policy and practices in place to measure its success, although awareness of the importance of security was similar across large and small organisations.

The lack of resources in the form of dedicated security staff as well as spare cash is holding back the smaller firms' security proposals. "Smaller financial institutions struggled to find and attract the staff with the adequate skills and competencies required to protect the organisation," the report said, adding that budgets are also "a likely factor".

Mergers and acquisitions in the financial sector were also raising security concerns. "Information security and privacy, along with IT-related controls, are not at the forefront of activities and controls," which could lead to breaches, the report said.

Confronted with a flood of patches, regulation and malware, financial services institutions are now no longer trying to go above and beyond what is expected in the security stakes and are more content to simply meet a minimum level of risk – 30 per cent this year compared to 19 per cent in 2003.

Companies are more on top of the security risks posed by new ICT -- the risks surrounding Wi-Fi are more widely recognised and policies and tech are being put in place to minimise the potential for security breaches.