Data security and cybersecurity are always important issues for financial services firms. After all, almost every business line in the industry depends on good, clean data. Until recently, however, cybersecurity hadn't received all that much attention, since firms had traditionally done a pretty good job of protecting against attacks.

This changed, however, when the he Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters attacked major financial institutions in September with what is thought to be the largest distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in history. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and PNC Bank were all targeted and had service disruptions to their online banking portals.

Luckily, no major damage was caused by the September attacks, but banks aren't taking any chances.