Bank of Montreal to develop cybersecurity fusion centre

Recently, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) had to suffer data breach. Apparently, 90,000 customers’ data was stolen by hackers. Eight months after the issue, Bank of Montreal will be combining its cybersecurity, fraud, and physical security capabilities into one financial crimes unit.

Larry Zelvin will be heading this unit; he was managing director and global head of cybersecurity at U.S.-based financial giant Citigroup Inc. Prior to that, he worked as director of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and senior director for response at the U.S. National Security Council.

“Given a growing reliance on advanced digital technologies, the financial services industry is faced with more sophisticated financial crime activities that often exploit misaligned fraud and cyber security practices,” Darryl White, BMO’s chief executive said in a statement.  “It is critical that we continue to invest, and develop our talent and processes to protect information of our customers, the bank and our partners.”

To know how customer data was leaked, Bank of Montreal and CIBC’s Simplii Financial online bank began probing which involved tons of customers. At this time, BMO revealed that fraudsters were aware of a limited number of customers’ information.