News media in the U.S. are abuzz with stories about cyberattacks as financial institutions emerge as the prime targets ofcyber-criminals. Reports suggest that since September 2012, cyberattacks on bank networks have exploded.

Actually, banking and other financial institutions have alwaysbeen a top target of hackers. During the past few years, renownedbanking organizations across the globe have fallen prey to criminalhacks. Beyond huge financial losses, the victims suffer irreparabledamage to their trust and credibility, the hallmarks of financialinstitutions.

The hackers' predominant activities include spreading malwareinfections, siphoning login credentials and denial of serviceattacks that disrupt service to legitimate users. The traditionalsecurity attack channels include viruses, keylogger trojans andcross-site scripting. The trojans monitor keystrokes, log them to afile and send them to remote attackers. Scripting, on the otherhand, enables malicious attackers to inject client-side script intoWeb pages viewed by other users and exploit the information tobypass access controls.