Deloitte's third annual Global Security Survey was produced with input from Chief Security Officers and security management teams from financial services industry organizations around the world. It attempts to provide broad insight around the question: How does the information security of my organization compare to that of my counterparts?

As this is the third year that we have conducted the security survey, we are now able to confidently observe differences from previous years as well as future trends. Results of this year’s survey show cause for both congratulations and concern.

Congratulations are in order for all of the respondents whose technology has been so strengthened that their organizations are far less attractive to security breaches from hackers who target their systems.

But the silver lining has a cloud: since fraudsters will always target what they perceive to be the weakest link, their efforts are now focused on the human factor. In particular, phishing and pharming (luring people to disclose sensitive information by using bogus emails and websites) are two new security threats that financial institutions faced in the past year.

This year’s survey suggests ways to thwart the fraudsters’ new focus and to further strengthen the organization.