2025 Cybersecurity Guide for Banks and Financial Institutions

Financial institutions have borne the burden of protecting clients’ sensitive data and maintaining regulatory compliance for years. But as 2025 ramps up so does a surge in cyberattacks, from phishing attempts to ransomware.

Organizations must be resilient when building their cyber security strategy to remain a beacon of trust for their customers and navigate the risky waters. With this in mind, we’ve designed a guide with actionable insights and real-world applications that go beyond the standard advice typically given for cyber security in banks and financial sectors.

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Cybersecurity Threats Facing Banks & Financial Institutions in 2025

As noted in FinTech Futures, global cybercrime costs are predicted to increase by 15% annually over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion by 2025, according to a recent Cybersecurity Ventures report. On top of that, IBM reported that finance firms are averaging $5.9 million per data breach.

With AI-driven phishing attacks, quantum computing risks, supply chain attacks, insider threats, fraud, and ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), it’s no wonder the dollars are raking up quickly in the wrong way.

We’ll review a few of the most prevalent cyber security threats banks and financial institutions face in 2025. Luckily, you can prevent these threats—and we can help.

Phishing and Social Engineering Attacks

Some of the most common cyberattack methods are phishing and social engineering, where cybercriminals exploit human error by manipulating employees or individual users into either clicking on links or sharing sensitive information to gain unauthorized access.

Threat actors use tactics like baiting, pre-testing, and quid pro quo, all of which can seem legitimate to an untrained or sleepy eye. It takes just one person to click on the wrong link or be convinced that they are talking to an authorized support person, for a malicious actor to sneak into an organization’s infrastructure and leak classified data.

Discover more about what is a social engineering attack and 10 different types of social engineering attacks to watch out for in 2025 on our recent blogs.  

Ransomware and Malware

The ransomware and malware trend continues to increase in 2025 as cyber attackers combine malicious software to block organizations' access while leveraging data exfiltration to expose sensitive information that they'll threaten to release unless businesses pay up.

Banking Trojans, credential-stealing malware, and polymorphic viruses are becoming more sophisticated, leaving organizations vulnerable to exploitation of their legacy systems, customer-facing applications, and employee devices.

According to The Hacker News, Lumma, XWorm, AsyncRAT, Remcos, and LockBit are the most common malware families that the financial industry should be on the lookout for and work to proactively defend in the coming year.

Insider Threats and Employee Vulnerabilities

Employees, whether by malicious intent or accidental actions, are risks to cyber security in financial institutions. Insider threats can vary from disgruntled employees stealing sensitive data to a simple computing error leading to a leak. Even an unmanaged network or personal device could leave a wide-open attack path for threat actors to take advantage of.

Executives and decision-makers are prime targets within the cyber security in banking sector for advanced cyberattack tactics like spear-phishing, deepfakes, and social engineering impersonation to coerce employees into taking wrongful action. Because of their influence and access to financial and strategic information, a compromised executive account can lead to horrible repercussions which is why many financial institutions and banks leverage digital executive protection.

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Cybersecurity Checklist: Four Measures Every Company Must Take in 2025

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To defend against these insider threats and ongoing vulnerabilities, here are eight practical strategies that every organization should take.  

1. Advanced Threat Detection and Response

Organizations should leverage threat detection and response to identify suspicious activity and quickly react with automated responses. An AI-driven threat detection and response tool can provide real-time protection by analyzing network traffic, user behavior, and system logs to detect anomalies for unusual activity and respond effectively to keep threat actors out.

2. Employee Awareness and Training Programs

Conducting regular cyber security training around phishing, social engineering, and the most recent hacking tactics can help prevent employees from falling for the latest schemes and improve the financial institution's overall security posture.

3. Incident Response and Recovery Plan

Creating an effective incident response and recovery plan (as known as IRP) that outlines clear procedures for identifying, containing, and mitigating threats. Owners should be indicated for each action to help security teams work across departments and act quickly with pre-planned processes or playbooks.

Organizations must continuously test their plans, identify lessons learned, and modify as needed to limit damage, restrict unauthorized access, and reduce downtime.

4. Collaboration with External Cybersecurity Partners

Partnering with trusted cybersecurity providers can enhance the organization’s security efforts. By collaborating with external experts, financial institutions can expand their team’s resources with not only extra support but also leverage specialized solutions like continuous monitoring, vulnerability assessments, compliance guidance, employee training, and more.

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Key Cybersecurity Tools and Technologies for 2025

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In response to stricter regulations, Gartner predicts financial institutions will increase cyber security spending by $212 billion in 2025. With so many cyber security tools and technologies, choosing the right solution can be overwhelming.

Here we’ll break down some of the most sought-after and prevalent cybersecurity tools to help find the perfect fit for improving security posture.

AI-Driven Behavioral Analytics for Threat Detection

AI tools have become more popular in the last few years. Leveraging artificial intelligence, these systems monitor behavioral analytics to define normal user and system behaviors. Then the software can identify patterns and uncover anomalies that could indicate malicious intent. From there, these platforms establish a baseline through continuous monitoring and can automatically detect threats and respond to incidents in real-time.

Quantum-Safe Cryptography for Future-Proof Data Security

As quantum computing becomes more widely available, financial organizations will need to future-proof their data security and defend against quantum attacks. Quantum-safe cryptography is an encryption algorithm created to protect against quantum computers and attacks that could compromise existing encryption and other cybersecurity controls. Investing in tools with quantum-safe cryptography will help financial institutions and banks stand guard against the future threats posed by quantum computing capabilities.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) for Unified Threat Management

Those in the financial sector should also consider extended detection and response (XDR) for unified threat management (UTM) as these tools integrate data from multiple sources such as networks, endpoints, cloud, and other identities to provide a holistic view for advanced threat detection and response.

Financial institutions can leverage XDR for centralizing threat detection, investigation, and response across multiple platforms. By leveraging automated workflows, organizations can streamline their incident response, and reduce manual labor and human errors with data correlation and threat identification across vectors.

Automated Incident Response with AI and SOAR Platforms

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) tools automate incident response with AI to automatically detect, analyze, and respond to security incidents. Banks and those in the financial sector have seen improved response times and streamlined processes through automated workflows that ease the burden on internal security teams.

When evaluating these tools, it’s important to consider the organization’s in-house team. Outlining the security team’s existing skills, tools, and assets will help determine the best solutions to enhance the business's current resources.

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Strategic Guide for Collaborating with Cybersecurity Experts

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Banks and financial institutions are known for making wise investments and cyber security is no different. To maximize return on investment (ROI) for cyber security partnerships and tools, it’s important to consider their expertise and experience within the financial industry as well as have a good understanding of the current cyber threats and compliance requirements.

During the proof of concepts (POCs), institutions should also determine if the solutions will help plan for protection, privacy, and planning, as well as seamlessly integrate with their current tool set. And last, but certainly not least, they need to consider the solution's pricing structure and licensing to ensure maximum value.

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Cybersecurity Case Study: Coinbase

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Emerging threats can be daunting for organizations, especially banks, credit unions, and financial institutions, who are highly sought-after targets due to their known assets. For example, Equifax experienced a major data breach in 2017 which affected approximately 150 million consumers. Ultimately it resulted in them paying more than $1 billion in penalties.

That doesn’t have to be the case. Coinbase was able to take down over 800 fraudulent social media accounts and 1000+ fake domains through its partnership with Doppel. Using Doppel's platform and advanced detection tools, they quickly identified scams, stopped impersonators, and solidified their customers' trust.

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Protect Your Financial Institution with Doppel’s Cybersecurity

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As we discussed, financial institutions face growing cyber security risks from phishing, ransomware, and insider attacks, all while needing to comply with complex regulations. Doppel specializes in cyber security in banking and financial institutions to address these challenges with AI-driven threat detection, real-time mitigation, and compliance monitoring to safeguard the financial sector.

From Doppel’s brand protection, phishing incident response, executive protection, and real-time threat mitigation, your financial organization can rest assured we’ll protect your institution alongside the world’s best brands. Plus, Doppel provides seamless  integration capabilities with traditional and emerging attack surfaces to detect threats all across the web.

Get unmatched executive defense and protect your assets, request a demo today to see how Doppel makes your business too costly to target.

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FAQs

What’s the best approach to assess current cybersecurity readiness?

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The best approach to assess your current cybersecurity readiness is to conduct a comprehensive risk asset to record critical assets, perform a threat analysis and a risk assessment to rank risks based on impact to the business. From there, scrutinize any security gaps and develop a mitigation strategy to manage your prioritized risks to strengthen your cybersecurity posture within your financial institution.

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Which emerging threats should banks & financial institutions prioritize next?

Banks and financial institutions should prioritize emerging threats such as ransomware, phishing and social engineering attempts, insider threats, and supply chain attacks.

Institutions must also maintain regulatory compliance with Anti-money laundering (AML), Combating the financing of terrorism (CFT), and artificial intelligence (AI).

But more importantly, security teams within the banking and financial sector need to focus on the most prevalent threats to their particular organizations which can be discovered through a risk assessment.

When should banks & financial institutions collaborate with external cybersecurity providers?

Banks and financial institutions should collaborate with external cybersecurity providers when their organization needs additional expertise that their internal IT team lacks, doesn’t have time for, or could optimize their security efforts with complicated, timely, or repetitive tasks.

External cybersecurity providers can also help organizations be proactive and stay up-to-date on the latest threats with patches to help mitigate common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs).

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What factors should financial institutions consider when creating a customized cybersecurity strategy?

Financial institutions should consider the following key factors when developing a customized cybersecurity strategy:

1. Threat Analysis: Conduct a thorough analysis of the industry’s most prevalent threats and identify vulnerabilities specific to the organization. Include an assessment of potential emerging and unknown threats to ensure proactive protection.
2. Comprehensive Security Policy: Develop a detailed security policy that defines procedures, assigns responsibilities, and outlines the steps to take in the event of an incident for quick remediation.
3. Technology Assessment: Evaluate their current technology stack and assess the effectiveness of existing security tools and frameworks. Optimize these resources to enhance security efforts and ensure seamless integration when onboarding any new tools.
4. Employee Training and Awareness: Provide regular cybersecurity training to educate employees on the latest tactics. Ensure the team understands how to recognize potential threats which will minimize human errors that typically come with phishing and social engineering.

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