This is despite the fact that 62 per cent of these organisations have noticed a significant rise in their customers making financial transactions online, and 50 per cent believe online financial fraud is increasing.

The survey found that many banks and payment companies are struggling to fully protect themselves and their customers from financial fraud at a time when customers are using an ever-wider range of devices to conduct a growing number of financial transactions online.

Two-thirds (65 per cent) say that customers are increasingly using different devices to make online payments, yet just 53 per cent have implemented two-factor authentication and only 50 per cent have introduced a specialised, real-time anti-fraud solution– even though 22 per cent believe this is the most effective form of protection available. Less than half (42 per cent) extend such a solution to customer devices and only 67 per cent implement a secure connection for all online payments.

Not surprisingly, 48 per cent accept that they are only mitigating risk rather than removing it altogether; and 29 per cent say it is cheaper to deal with online financial fraud incidents as they arise rather than to try to prevent them from happening.

“The study shows that banks and payment organisations are finding it difficult to manage online financial fraud in today’s connected, omni-channel consumer landscape. 38 per cent of the organisations we spoke to admit that it is increasingly difficult to tell whether a transaction is fraudulent or genuine, with a worrying one in three opting for a ‘we’ll deal with it as it happens’ approach to fraud protection. If you consider that our own research uncovered 22.9 million financial malware attacks in 2014, targeting 2.7 million customers worldwide, it is clear that dealing with each incident individually is not a viable, long-term option. Customers deserve better and so do the financial services,” said Kirill Slavin, general manager UK and Ireland, Kaspersky Lab.

The study found that general Internet-security software solutions are not widely regarded as an effective method for preventing the increasingly well-disguised phishing and malware attacks that can lead to financial fraud. Less than ten per cent of respondents favoured this option.

The preferred option is a specialist solution. Kaspersky Fraud Prevention is a comprehensive security solution designed to counter online banking fraud. It provides multi-layered protection for online and mobile banking. The main platform comprises two subsystems and one of these, a clientless engine, resides inside the bank’s infrastructure and ensures an additional layer of protection by analysing banking operations on customers’ devices.

The other subsystem is a solution for endpoints such as computers and mobile devices. Once installed on a Mac or Windows computer, Kaspersky Fraud Prevention for Endpoints checks the authenticity of websites and opens pages in protected mode to ensure all personal data is protected from theft or modification. It also ensures no malware can be loaded onto the computer. The Kaspersky Fraud Prevention SDK, in turn, allows applications secured against online fraud to be created for Android, iOS or Windows Phone platforms.

*The IT Security Risks Survey 2015, conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International, involved more than 5,000 company representatives, including 131 banks’ and payment services’ representatives, from 26 countries.