In financial services, trust is currency and uptime is everything. Yet many institutions unknowingly operate under a dangerous illusion: mistaking compliance for resilience, and audit readiness for true operational readiness.
The reality is stark, being compliant does not guarantee you’re secure.
In today’s fast-shifting threat landscape, overconfidence is not just risky, it’s a vulnerability waiting to be exploited.
1) The Illusion of Security: Compliance Is Not Control
Too often, FSIs hold up regulatory certifications such as PCI DSS, MAS TRM as proof they are “secure.”
The problem?
These standards confirm the presence of controls, not the effectiveness of your defences in a live threat scenario. An organisation can pass an audit today and still fall victim to ransomware, data leaks, or insider breaches tomorrow.
Compliance frameworks are static by design, while cyber threats evolve daily.
Audits may happen once a year, but attackers are probing your systems every hour. Many requirements are broad, open to interpretation, and may lag behind emerging risks such as zero-day exploits, supply chain compromises, or cloud misconfigurations.
According to the Global Financial Stability Report, the number of cyberattacks has nearly doubled since before the COVID-19 pandemic, with financial firms now representing almost 20% of all incidents (International Monetary Fund, 2024).
This over-reliance on documentation leads to what’s known as the “illusion of security” – a dangerous mindset where leaders assume all is well because policies exist (Avivi, 2025).
Real resilience comes from active visibility, continuous monitoring, and real-time incident response. Without that, even the most ‘compliant’ environment can be alarmingly exposed.
2) MAS Compliance ≠ Cyber Resilience
Singapore’s Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has raised the bar for cybersecurity through the Technology Risk Management (TRM) Guidelines, Cyber Hygiene Notices, and related mandates and the industry is stronger for it. These rules have helped establish a solid baseline of security across financial institutions.
But resilience goes far beyond hygiene. Even MAS distinguishes between the two: compliance is about meeting minimum requirements, while resilience is about maintaining operations under active attack.
FSIs that treat MAS standards as the finish line, rather than the starting point, leave themselves exposed. Patch management, MFA, and log retention are all essential, but they do not guarantee survival when the worst happens. True resilience demands:
- Proactive threat hunting to detect attackers before they strike
- Cross-functional response playbooks to ensure fast, coordinated action
- Recovery testing to validate business continuity under pressure
- Continuous improvement cycles to adapt to an evolving threat landscape
Meeting the letter of the law without investing in these capabilities is like locking your front door but leaving the windows wide open.
3) Case Studies: When FSIs Thought They Were Safe
In 2025, a ransomware attack on a third-party printing vendor compromised over 8,200 customer bank statements belonging to DBS Bank and the Singapore branch of Bank of China.
While both banks’ core systems remained unaffected, attackers exfiltrated sensitive data from the vendor’s environment. The breach exposed a classic supply chain weakness: strong internal controls are meaningless if partners’ cyber posture is weak. (MSSP Alert, 2025)
Limited visibility over vendor systems turned into an exploitable blind spot, reinforcing the need for zero-trust principles, active vendor risk assessments, and continuous third-party monitoring.
A few years earlier, between December 2021 and early 2022, OCBC Bank was hit by a large-scale SMS phishing campaign that tricked customers into revealing their online banking credentials. Spoofed SMS headers and fake websites convinced around 470 customers to part with S$8.5 million.
While the bank’s systems were uncompromised, the attack exploited human trust, proving that customer-facing channels remain a critical attack surface. The incident prompted national alarm and regulatory scrutiny, highlighting the importance of real-time fraud detection, rapid phishing takedowns, and ongoing public awareness efforts. (Chee K. & Low D., 2022)
Together, these breaches make one thing clear: cyber resilience is not just about fortifying internal systems. It’s about securing the extended ecosystem from third-party vendors to end users — and recognising that attackers will always seek out the weakest link, wherever it lies.
4) How LGA Delivers True Cyber Resilience for FSIs
The cases of DBS, Bank of China, and OCBC reveal a hard truth: cyber threats don’t wait for audit cycles, and attackers don’t care about policy documentation. Whether through a supply chain exploit or a social engineering scam, they target the gaps that compliance alone cannot close. FSIs need more than visibility, they need real-time action, contextual intelligence, and resilience embedded into daily operations.
That’s where LGA comes in.
We deliver true cyber resilience through two core solutions designed for the unique demands of financial institutions: SOC Monitoring and cloud-native Endpoint Protection.
Working together, they provide continuous, intelligence-driven defense across your entire environment from core infrastructure to end-user devices.
This approach bridges the gap between audit-ready compliance and operational security, ensuring that when threats emerge, your institution can detect, respond, and recover without missing a beat.
SOC Monitoring – Real-Time Threat Detection Without the Overhead
Our SOC Monitoring is purpose-built for financial institutions that cannot afford blind spots. Delivered as a SOC-as-a-Service model, it provides proactive threat prevention, continuous network monitoring, and rapid incident response, without the high cost and complexity of running your own security operations center.
Our platform does not just log suspicious activity, it intercepts it.
Using intelligent automation and expert oversight, we continuously analyse network traffic, flag anomalies, and enforce protective protocols in real time. FSIs also gain access to a secure customer portal, offering near real-time visibility into their security posture so they can act with confidence.
To match different operational models and maturity levels, we offer two service tiers:
- Managed Service (Standard & Lite): Full operational coverage with log retention, quarterly reviews, and vulnerability assessments, ideal for firms seeking end-to-end protection.
- Monitoring Service (Standard & Lite): 24/7 threat monitoring and escalation for FSIs with in-house firewall management teams needing additional vigilance.
Whether deployed as your primary line of defense or to strengthen existing capabilities, LGA’s SOC Monitoring ensures faster detection, smarter response, and constant readiness against evolving threats.
Endpoint Protection: Defense at the Edge
Most attacks start at the endpoint and that’s where LGA’s cloud-native Endpoint Protection Platform stops them. Combining next-gen antivirus (NGAV) with endpoint detection and response (EDR), it shields FSIs from ransomware, fileless malware, and credential abuse.
Powered by behavioural analytics, machine learning, and heuristics, it identifies and blocks suspicious activity before malicious code executes — a clear advantage over legacy, signature-based tools that react only after compromise.
Through a single, lightweight agent, FSIs gain multi-layered protection, unified endpoint visibility, rollback capabilities, and seamless integration with existing IT environments. As hybrid work, cloud adoption, and mobile-first strategies expand the attack surface, LGA turns endpoint security from a compliance checkbox into a proactive first line of defence.
From Compliance to Resilience, The Time to Act Is Now
The lessons from the breaches are clear: compliance alone will not keep your institution safe. Attackers exploit the gaps between audit cycles, the weaknesses in third-party partners, and the trust of your customers.
True cyber resilience means detecting and stopping threats in real time, protecting every endpoint, and extending security across your entire digital ecosystem.
With LGA’s SOC Monitoring and cloud-native Endpoint Protection, FSIs gain the visibility, speed, and control to defend against modern threats,without adding operational complexity. It’s a defence model built not just to pass audits, but to withstand the pressures of a live attack.
Cyber threats are not slowing down, and neither should your defences. Let’s make sure your institution is ready.
Contact LGA today to discuss how we can strengthen your resilience and keep your operations secure, no matter what’s coming next.
Reference
Avivi, A. (2025, March 7). The Illusion of Security—Why Passing an Audit Doesn’t Mean You’re Safe. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/illusion-securitywhy-passing-audit-doesnt-mean-youre-safe-avivi-hmgce/
Chee K. & Low D. (2022, January 22). How SMS phishing scams have affected OCBC customers and put text messaging security in focus. The Strait Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/tech-news/how-sms-phishing-scams-have-affected-ocbc-customers-and-put-text-messaging-security-in-focus
International Monetary Fund. (2024, April 16). Global financial stability report: April 2024. International Monetary Fund. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/GFSR/Issues/2024/04/16/global-financial-stability-report-april-2024
Lashway D. C. et al. (2025, July 31). Complying with regulatory requirements and SEC guidance. Global Investigations Review. https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/guide/the-guide-cyber-investigations/fourth-edition/article/complying-regulatory-requirements-and-sec-guidance
MSSP Alert. (2025, May 2). Banking Customer Data Exposed Following Ransomware Attack on Vendor. MSSP Alert. https://www.msspalert.com/native/banking-customer-data-exposed-following-ransomware-attack-on-vendor?utm_source=chatgpt.com
