Investors are looking to see which banks have the best cyber resiliency.
Financial institutions are navigating a growing cybersecurity minefield, with data breaches doubling since 2023 and increasingly affecting a company’s market confidence or regulatory standing.
According to a report from AInvest, third-party breaches in the financial sector have doubled since 2023. The report also found that the average breach costs hitting $4.8 million, and insider-related incidents costing $17.4 million per organization.
With cyberattacks via third-party vendors and insiders rising, investors are beginning to scrutinize fintech and banking stocks for cyber resiliency as intensely as for earnings per share.
Hacks of this type often take around 80 days to contain, illustrating how experts still struggle to thwart real-time risks.Hacks are growing in size and impact
The consequences also go beyond balance sheets: Santander’s 2025 cross-border data breach, for instance, dented its market standing even before regulatory fines were levied.
In that attack, 30 million customers from Spain, Uruguay and Chile and some Santander employees had their data hacked, including their personal data like social security numbers. In October 2024, the bank was fined €50,000 by the Spanish data protection agency (AEPD) for failing to report the breach and violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
“Following an investigation, we have now confirmed that certain information relating to customers of Santander Chile, Spain and Uruguay, as well as all current and some former Santander employees of the group had been accessed,” it said in a statement posted at the time.
“No transactional data, nor any credentials that would allow transactions to take place on accounts are contained in the database, including online banking details and passwords.
