New legislation brought in by the European commission is going to force banks to come clean when they have any form of data loss or loose any data which compromises their customer base.
This was the message delivered in a speech made by Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European commission. Many believe this has come as a direct result of the rare admission by Citi bank last week that they had suffered a data breach. However in addition to this there has been a stream of recent attacks such as that on Sony which have called out for this new legislation.
A representative of the British Bankers Association commented, “the UK’s banks follow the highest standards of customer protection in their data management” and added that it was “unlikely that such a step would affect the current practices of the UK banks.”
“I understand that some in the banking sector are concerned that a mandatory notification requirement would be a additional administrative burden. However I do believe that an obligation to notify incidents of serious data security breach is entirely proportionate and would enhance consumers’ confidence in data security and oversight mechanisms.” Ms Reding.
Approximately 360,000 Citi customers had their names, email addresses and account numbers exposed to hackers. As well as Citi promising to work closely with their internet security team in order to beef up security measures. The U.S. Federal government is also looking closely at the issue and is seriously considering implementing new measures which will improve online banking security.
Banks will always be a major target for hackers and such incidents will receive much more publicity now. The danger is that many hackers thrive from making a name for themselves and may relish the chance to make headlines. It also will be interesting to note how new legislation will affect other companies in the future, outside of the banking sphere such as web giants Google and Facebook.
