The Securities and Exchange Commission’s exam division is warning advisors and broker-dealers to immediately review their cybersecurity controls, as phishing and ransomware attacks are on the rise.
In a just-released risk alert, the agency’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations warns that while recent reports indicate that one or more threat actors have used phishing and ransomware measures to penetrate financial institution networks, OCIE “has observed ransomware attacks impacting service providers to registrants.”
OCIE urged SEC registrants as well as other financial services market participants to monitor the cybersecurity alerts published by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), including the updated alert published on June 30 relating to recent ransomware attacks.