Banks adopt military-style tactics to fight cyber crime

In a windowless bunker here, a wall of monitors tracked incoming attacks — 267,322 in the last 24 hours, according to one hovering dial, or about three every second — as a dozen analysts stared at screens filled with snippets of computer code.

Pacing around, overseeing the stream of warnings, was a former Delta Force soldier who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan before shifting to a new enemy: cyberthieves.

“This is not that different from terrorists and drug cartels,” Matt Nyman, the command center’s creator, said as he surveyed his squadron of Mastercard employees. “Fundamentally, threat networks operate in similar ways.”

Cybercrime is one of the world’s fastest-growing and most lucrative industries. At least $445 billion was lost last year, up around 30 per cent from just three years earlier, a global economic study found, and the Treasury Department recently designated cyberattacks as one of the greatest risks to the American financial sector. For banks and payment companies, the fight feels like a war — and they’re responding with an increasingly militarized approach.

Former government cyber-spies, soldiers and intelligence officials now dominate the top ranks of banks’ security teams. They’ve brought to their new jobs the tools and techniques used for national defense: combat exercises, intelligence hubs modeled on those used in counterterrorism work and threat analysts who monitor the internet’s shadowy corners.

At Mastercard, Mr. Nyman oversees the company’s new fusion center, a term borrowed from the Department of Homeland Security. After the attacks of September 11, the agency set up scores of fusion centers to coordinate federal, state and local intelligence-gathering. The approach spread throughout the government, with the centers used to fight disease outbreaks, wildfires and sex trafficking.

Then banks grabbed the playbook. At least a dozen of them, from giants like Citigroup and Wells Fargo to regional players such as Bank of the West, have opened fusion centers in recent years, and more are in the works. Fifth Third Bank is building one in its Cincinnati headquarters, and Visa, which created its first two years ago in Virginia, is developing two more, in Britain and Singapore. Having their own intelligence hives, the banks hope, will help them better detect patterns in all the data they amass.

The centers also have a symbolic purpose. Having a literal war room reinforces the new reality. Fending off thieves has always been a priority — it’s why banks build vaults — but the arms race has escalated rapidly.