The digital economy around the globe, in today’s age, includes mainly banking, insurance, and financial institutions. They are the ones who have the responsibility of handling cash, processing millions of payments daily, and in the due process keeping the critical data safe. But this makes them a prime target for cybercriminals. In this scenario where threat is not just a number game any more, threat intelligence companies have become the indispensable defensive force for the financial sector.
Cyber risk in finance sector has also evolved and is no longer characterized by minor fraud attempts or sporadic malware infections. Presently, the threats are organized, heavily reliant on data, and are often connected to extensive criminal networks operating across borders. Financial entities require networking visibility beyond their perimeters to be informed who is approaching them, what is the manner of attack’s evolution, and from which location the next risk is likely to arise. Such a comprehensive viewpoint is precisely where the role of Threat Intelligence Companies becomes pivotal.
As per the Cyble’s Global Cybersecurity Report 2025, the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector was the victim of 634 cyber incidents in a single year, thus, securing its position as one of the most attacked industries in the world. Government agencies and law enforcement were the only sectors that suffered more attacks.
These figures are indicative of the reasons why the financial sector is increasingly relying on Threat Intelligence Companies as well as investing in tools like Cyber threat intelligence platforms, Attack Surface Protection Solutions, Dark Web Monitoring Solutions, and Brand protection monitoring to stay one step ahead of the opponents.
What are the 4 types of threats?
To understand how to use intelligence to enable defensive actions, you must first look at the types of threats facing financial institutions today. There are:
- Cybercrime: These types of threats include ransomware, data breaches, phishing, and credential theft that are initiated by someone attempting to steal money or personal information.
- Insider Threat: An insider threat is a result of the actions of an employee or contractor acting with either intended negligence or intentional malice.
- Third-Party/Supply Chain Threat: These types of threats arise from vendors, service providers, and software dependencies that introduce vulnerabilities into any business environment.
- Advanced and Persistent Threats: Long-term, targeted attacks that are designed to quietly gain access to sensitive systems and data over an extended period of time.
All four of these threats are fundamentally different; however, they all benefit from early insight and context. Unfortunately, early insight into many of these types of threats is often difficult to achieve using traditional security measures alone.
Why Financial Institutions Are Prime Targets
Attackers target the finance sector because it has two things that they value most – money and data. Attackers can easily sell access to banking credential information, payment access, and personal identity information via underground markets.
According to Cyble’s report on breached businesses, attackers not only gain access to your business systems, but they also then utilize this access by selling it. For the year 2025 alone, there were 3,013 compromised access listings of companies that were sold for money; with the banking, financial services, and insurance industry accounting for 284 of these breaches.
Because of this continuous targeting of the banking and finance sector, the majority of banks depend upon threat intelligence companies to help track how the attacker is behaving outside of a bank’s environment. With intelligence tracking from these threat intelligence companies, banks can determine where their compromised access is being sold or advertised, who is using the compromised credentials, and if other businesses are involved in any of the present crime activity.
Ransomware and Data Breaches Continue to Rise
Ransomware is still a major problem and destabilizing factor in the world of finance. Cyble recorded a total of 5,967 ransomware attacks worldwide in 2025, meaning 50% more than in the previous year. In addition, the number of data breaches and leaks reached 6,046, which was the second-highest level ever recorded.
The use of ransomware is no longer limited only to the IT departments of banks and insurers. It can disrupt whole operations, impede customer service, and even lead to regulatory actions. Threat Intelligence Companies help financial institutions by revealing the identity of ransomware groups, their modus operandi and the early signs of compromise before the systems are locked.
Managing an Expanding Attack Surface
Today’s financial companies have a presence over the cloud, mobile apps, APIs, and also third-party partners. This situation leads to some blind spots that are misused by the attackers. The Attack Surface Protection Solutions in conjunction with the external intelligence help the organizations to discover the vulnerable assets that they may not be aware of.
Threat Intelligence Companies by combining internal and external data give a clear picture of which exposed systems are under attack, which vulnerabilities are being talked about or used by the attackers.
The Role of Dark Web Visibility
A significant amount of financial cybercrime activity happens out of sight. Stolen credentials, access to internal systems, and leaked data are routinely traded in underground markets. Dark web monitoring tools help surface these risks, but raw data alone is not enough.
This is where Threat Intelligence Companies add value—by validating findings, linking them to known threat actors, and helping financial teams prioritize what truly matters. Knowing that credentials are exposed is important; understanding how likely they are to be abused is even more critical.
Endpoint Security Needs Intelligence Context
Endpoint Security Solutions remain essential in banks and financial institutions, but endpoints generate massive volumes of alerts. Without intelligence context, teams can struggle to separate real threats from noise.
By enriching endpoint data with intelligence on malware families, command-and-control infrastructure, and active campaigns, Threat Intelligence Companies help security teams make faster, more confident decisions.
Turning Intelligence into Action
The major issue that financial cybersecurity is facing today is the application of intelligence. Most of the organizations that gather threat data find it hard to properly use it. The cutting-edge threat intelligence platforms of today practically eliminate this problem by unifying intelligence, automating the workflow, and allowing teamwork between the different departments.
As an example, Cyble’s Threat Intelligence Platform provides organizations with the capability of consolidating different sources of intelligence, getting better threat visibility, and taking quicker action through insights—no overload of analysts and no disturbance of current practices.
Supporting Compliance and Risk Management
Banking and finance sector companies are under strict laws and regulations. It becomes crucial to show risk management, detection, and decision-making to be proactive, timely, and even informed. The Threat Intelligence Companies help the financial institutions to achieve these goals by giving them documented insights into the threats’ trends, the patterns of attacks, and the emerging risks that coincide with regulations and audit requirements.
Conclusion
Financial institutions are still vulnerable to cyberattacks. Attackers are well-funded, well-organized, and always changing. It is no longer sufficient to rely only on internal security tools in this environment.
Threat intelligence firms are now strategically essential to the financial industry because they provide external visibility, attacker context, and actionable insights. They assist banks and insurers in transitioning from reactive defense to proactive, informed security, safeguarding not only systems but also trust in general.
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