Crafting Strategies of Security Breaches: How Financial Technology Business Modela Work in Data-Centric Approaches

Introduction

Technology is playing a major role in every aspect of a human being; financial technology, shopping, online transaction, business, study, social to name a few, which means that almost all of an individual’s personal information has become digitalized. At the same time, securing this information from data breaches has become one of the biggest challenges to many governments and agencies. Cyberattack and Cybercrime such as Phishing, cyberbullying, blackmailing and online fraud are some examples of cyber threats, which will undoubtedly increase along with the growth of technology and development of social media. Therefore, protecting or preventing cyber threats from happening is vital and to some extent, it is becoming a priority for some country. In recent years, media attention to cyberattack is increasing as a number of cyberattacks are growing. Thus, it gives the impression that it has happened frequently and becoming more dangerous. Besides, as stated by PwC (2020), about 50 per cent of the respondents across global reported an incident of fraud and economic crime in the past 24 months, which led to losing US$42 billion excluding the brand damage, and market share. On top of that Cybercrime is at the second-place fraud that the respondents experienced with 34 per cent, with this statement it shows that cyberattack is more dangerous.

Financial technology industries frequently deal with hacking and information theft. According to the Symantec (a cyber security firm) Internet Security Threat Report 2019 (2019) every month there are more than 4,800 websites compromised with formjacking code, and more than 3.7 million formjacking attacks in 2018 being blocked by the firm. Moreover, according to McAfee in 2017, the global economy has been affected about $600 billion due to Cybercrime. According to Rajeyyagari and Alotaibi (2018), the nation’s growth more impacted by cybercrimes such as hacking of accounts, blackmail, defamation and with the impact of cybercrimes every year, the organizations are losing billions of money and reputation leading to loss of future business. Cyber threats and cyber security are interconnected. Whenever we think about cyber security, the first thing that comes into our mind is its threat. In this digital platform, especially during this Pandemic COVID-19 as most of the businesses and organizations allowed their employees to work from home and without secure Internet access could lead to data breaches as all of our devices and network can be reached by a hacker. The mindset that “it will never happen to us” has to change. Individuals and organizations need to be aware of what to look out for and how to protect themselves and their institutions against cyber threats. As cyber threat involves everyone, there are several ways to protect individuals or organizations from becoming a victim on this digital platform. Therefore, it is necessary for a country to develop the law and awareness that are needed to protect internet users within their countries.

In addition, speaking on the digital impact of Pandemic COVID-19, the Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications minister said pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and connectivity in Brunei, it has also increased cyber security threats. Cyber security threats and incidents have become more obvious with irresponsible actors launching cyber security attacks to disrupt critical services and systems. Malicious activities such as phishing and scams during COVID-19 have also increased, making the public anxious and uncertain of the situation.” (Rasidah, 2020). Cyber security plays an important role along with the development of information technology (IT). Recently, securing information has become one of the biggest challenges to many governments and agencies as well as society due to the growing cyberattack and threats. Hence, many governments, and agencies are taking several approaches to prevent cyber threats. In the case of Brunei, the government and agencies are taking several approaches such as by forming a National cyber security agency, stated cyber security on Digital Economy Masterplan 2025, collaboration with universities as well as sharing and educate people through awareness programs, social media, websites, radio and television on Internet safety and information security.