{"id":13398,"date":"2022-07-14T09:12:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T13:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=13398"},"modified":"2026-02-06T09:26:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T14:26:03","slug":"the-hidden-cyber-risks-of-siloed-financial-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/the-hidden-cyber-risks-of-siloed-financial-data\/","title":{"rendered":"The hidden cyber risks of siloed financial data"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMoney Matters<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe hidden cyber risks of siloed financial data\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"Teresa\t\t\t\tTeresa Meek<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

CFOs and their finance teams are in many ways at the center of an increasingly complicated threat landscape. The information they use is too often stored in unconnected databases, hard drives, and software applications, which teams export into spreadsheets and send across the organization as email attachments. Each data transfer and hand-off introduce a new set of risks \u2013 at a time when cyberattacks are rapidly increasing. Data compromises rose more than 68% in 2021, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaches are also getting more expensive. The average cost of a breach rose 10% to $3.6 million last year, the IBM\/Ponemon Institute\u2019s 2021 Cost of a Data Breach survey found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leadership teams know they need to do a better job of securing sensitive financial data. In Foundry\u2019s 2021 Digital Business study<\/a>, over a third of business and IT leaders cited improving security as a top strategic objective, and 58% said security had taken on greater importance as a result of the pandemic, when many companies switched to remote operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bogged down by manual procedures<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to financial data, many security and compliance issues stem from the use of outdated, highly manual business processes, including sharing financial data through spreadsheets and emails. People with access to financial data and processes are especially attractive targets for cyberthieves. With manual processes and locally stored spreadsheets, people may send sensitive data to those who shouldn\u2019t see it or post it on internal messaging platforms that don\u2019t meet compliance rules. They also may share it with vendors and contractors, taking it out of company control. Every new instance of data sharing opens the door to a potential breach. \u201cWhen information changes hands, you don\u2019t know who\u2019s accessing it or who\u2019s changing it,\u201d explains Scott Freedman, Director of Marketing for Sage Intacct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safety in the cloud<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Consolidating financial information on a cloud-native platform creates a single source of truth, substantially reducing these types of risks. Cloud-native applications are built with granular controls for compliance and access. This allows finance managers to provide different levels of information to different stakeholders, via personalized dashboards that display all the information they need to do their jobs, but nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all cloud-based applications provide the same level of safety precautions. Because security is critical, it\u2019s important to determine whether a solution meets your specific needs. Here are some of the questions financial professionals should ask:<\/p>\n\n\n\n