Cyber Security for Accountants: Key Risks & How to Prevent Them

Accountancy firms are responsible for vast amounts of highly sensitive financial and personal information. Client bank details, payroll records, tax information, company accounts and personally identifiable information can all pass through an accountant’s systems, making the sector an attractive target for cyber criminals.

As accounting becomes increasingly digital, firms also rely on a growing number of cloud applications and online platforms. Employees may regularly access accounting software, payroll systems, document management platforms, banking portals, CRM systems and other business applications, often using separate credentials for each.

This creates a significant cyber security challenge. Attackers do not necessarily need to compromise sophisticated security infrastructure if they can simply steal an employee’s password or persuade someone to approve a fraudulent request.

Effective cyber security for accountants therefore requires more than antivirus software and firewalls. Accountancy firms need to protect identities, control access to applications and reduce the opportunities for stolen or compromised credentials to be used.

Why are accountancy firms a target for cyber attacks?

Financial information has obvious value to cyber criminals, but the appeal of accountancy firms extends beyond the information contained within their own systems.

Accountants often have trusted relationships with numerous businesses and individuals. Depending on their role, they may have access to financial systems, payment information, tax records and confidential commercial data belonging to multiple clients.

Compromising a single accountancy firm can therefore potentially provide an attacker with access to information relating to many different organisations.

The nature of accounting work can create further opportunities for attackers. Employees regularly receive invoices, financial documents, payment requests and attachments by email. Cyber criminals can imitate these routine communications to make phishing emails and social engineering attacks more convincing.

At the same time, the increasing use of cloud-based applications means that obtaining valid login credentials can potentially allow an attacker to access sensitive information remotely.

What are the biggest cyber security risks for accountants?

Accountancy firms can face many of the same cyber threats as other organisations, but the sensitive information they manage can increase both their likelihood of being targeted and the potential consequences of a successful attack.

Some of the most significant cyber security risks for accountants include the following.

Phishing attacks

Phishing remains one of the most common ways attackers attempt to gain access to business systems.

A phishing email may appear to come from a client, colleague, software provider or senior member of the organisation. The recipient might be encouraged to open a malicious attachment, follow a link to a fraudulent login page or provide confidential information.

For accountants, phishing attempts can be particularly convincing because exchanging financial documents and responding to payment-related requests are normal parts of everyday work.

Attackers may also use compromised email accounts to make their messages appear more legitimate. An email arriving from the genuine account of a client or supplier can be considerably more difficult for an employee to identify as malicious.

Credential theft

Usernames and passwords provide access to many of the cloud services accountancy firms depend upon.

Cyber criminals can obtain credentials through phishing, malware, previous data breaches and other techniques. Password reuse can make the problem considerably worse.

If an employee uses the same password for several services, the compromise of one account could potentially expose others. Attackers can also use automated credential-stuffing attacks to test previously leaked username and password combinations against other services.

This makes effective password and identity management an important component of cyber security for accountancy firms.

Weak and reused passwords

Employees expected to remember passwords for numerous applications may naturally choose passwords that are easier to remember or reuse credentials across different services.

Unfortunately, this can create significant security weaknesses.

Password policies that simply require increasingly complicated passwords do not necessarily solve the underlying problem. If employees have dozens of credentials to manage, increasing password complexity can make them harder to remember and potentially encourage insecure practices.

Reducing the number of passwords employees need to manage can therefore be more effective than relying on users to create and remember unique credentials for every system.

Business email compromise

Business email compromise (BEC) involves criminals impersonating trusted individuals or taking control of legitimate email accounts to facilitate fraud.

An attacker might impersonate a director and request an urgent payment, for example, or compromise a client's email account and provide fraudulent bank details.

Accounting and finance teams can be particularly attractive targets because employees may have responsibility for invoices, payments and financial approvals.

Technical security controls should therefore be supported by clear procedures for verifying unusual or high-value financial requests.

Ransomware

Ransomware can prevent organisations from accessing critical files and systems, with attackers typically demanding payment to restore access.

Modern ransomware incidents can also involve data theft. Attackers may copy confidential information before encrypting systems and threaten to publish or sell the stolen data.

For an accountancy firm, the consequences can include operational disruption, financial loss, reputational damage and the exposure of sensitive client information.

Strong access controls, secure backups, endpoint protection, vulnerability management and employee awareness can all contribute to reducing ransomware risk.

Insider threats

Not every security incident originates outside an organisation.

Employees, contractors and other authorised users may intentionally or accidentally expose sensitive information. An employee could send information to the wrong recipient, fall victim to phishing, download confidential files to an inappropriate device or retain access to systems after changing roles.

There is also the possibility of deliberate misuse by an authorised user.

Accountancy firms therefore need visibility and control over who can access sensitive applications and information. Access should be appropriate to each person's responsibilities and removed promptly when it is no longer required.

Excessive user privileges

Giving employees more access than they need increases the potential impact of a compromised account.

If every user has extensive privileges across multiple applications, stealing a single employee's credentials could provide an attacker with broad access to business systems.

Following the principle of least privilege can reduce this risk. Employees should generally have access only to the applications and information necessary for their roles.

Access requirements should also be reviewed as employees move between positions or responsibilities change.

How can accountancy firms improve cyber security?

There is no single technology capable of eliminating cyber risk. Effective cyber security requires multiple layers of protection covering people, processes, devices, applications and identities.

For accountancy firms, protecting user identities and controlling application access should form an important part of this approach.

Implement identity and access management

Identity and access management (IAM) provides organisations with a structured way to manage digital identities and control who can access applications and resources.

Rather than managing access separately within every individual application, an IAM strategy can provide greater visibility and centralised control over user access.

For accountancy firms using numerous cloud applications, this can make it easier to ensure that the right people have access to the right systems.

It can also improve the joiner, mover and leaver process. When someone joins the organisation, changes role or leaves, their access can be provisioned, modified or removed more effectively.

This is particularly important when employees have access to confidential financial and client information.

Use single sign-on

Single sign-on (SSO) allows users to access multiple applications through a single authentication process.

From a security perspective, one of the major advantages of SSO is that it can reduce the number of passwords employees need to create and remember.

Instead of maintaining separate credentials for numerous applications, employees can authenticate through a central identity.

This can reduce password reuse and make it easier for organisations to apply consistent authentication and access policies.

SSO can also improve the user experience. Employees spend less time entering or resetting passwords while IT teams gain greater control over how users access business applications.

Protect accounts with multi-factor authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an additional authentication requirement beyond a username and password.

This means that obtaining an employee's password may not be sufficient for an attacker to access an account.

MFA can provide an important defence against credential theft and phishing, particularly for sensitive applications and accounts with elevated privileges.

However, organisations should not view MFA as a complete solution in isolation. Attackers increasingly use techniques designed to circumvent weaker forms of MFA, including social engineering and MFA fatigue attacks.

Accountancy firms should therefore consider MFA as one component of a broader identity security strategy.

Reduce reliance on passwords

Passwords remain one of the most frequently targeted elements of organisational security.

Where possible, firms should look for opportunities to reduce employee reliance on manually created and remembered passwords.

SSO, password management and passwordless authentication technologies can all help reduce the number of credentials users need to manage directly.

Where passwords remain necessary, organisations should ensure employees can use strong, unique credentials without needing to remember or manually manage them.

Apply the principle of least privilege

Employees should only have access to the systems and information required to perform their jobs.

This limits the potential damage if an individual account is compromised.

Access permissions should be reviewed regularly, particularly when employees change roles or responsibilities. Privileged accounts should receive additional protection because compromising them could provide an attacker with extensive access.

Remove access immediately when employees leave

Former employees retaining access to company applications creates an unnecessary security risk.

Accountancy firms should have a defined offboarding process that ensures application access is revoked as soon as an employee or contractor leaves the organisation.

The challenge becomes greater as the number of SaaS applications increases. IT teams may not always know every application an employee has been given access to, particularly where departments can adopt cloud services independently.

Centralising identity and application access management can make it easier to identify and remove access consistently.

Train employees to recognise phishing and social engineering

Technology can significantly reduce cyber risk, but employees still play an important role.

Security awareness training should help staff recognise suspicious emails, fraudulent login pages, unusual payment requests and attempts to obtain confidential information.

Training should be relevant to the threats employees actually encounter. For accounting teams, examples involving invoices, tax documents, payment changes and client communications may be particularly valuable.

Organisations should also create straightforward procedures for reporting suspicious activity.

Keep software and devices secure

Operating systems, browsers, applications and other software should be kept up to date so known security vulnerabilities can be addressed.

Endpoint protection can provide an additional layer of defence against malware and other threats.

Accountancy firms should also consider how employees access systems remotely and ensure company information is appropriately protected on laptops and mobile devices.

Maintain secure backups

Reliable backups can significantly reduce the impact of ransomware, accidental deletion and other incidents affecting business data.

Backups should be appropriately protected and isolated so that compromising the primary environment does not automatically compromise backup copies as well.

Firms should also test restoration processes periodically. A backup is only valuable if the organisation can successfully restore the information when required.

Why identity security is critical for accountancy firms

The traditional approach to cyber security focused heavily on protecting the corporate network. However, cloud applications and remote working have changed where many organisations' critical resources are located.

Employees can now access important business systems from almost anywhere, and many of those systems are operated by third-party SaaS providers rather than hosted within an organisation's own network.

Identity has consequently become an important security boundary.

If an attacker obtains valid credentials, their activity may initially look similar to that of an authorised employee. Protecting authentication and controlling application access is therefore essential.

For accountancy firms, this means knowing:

• who has access to each business application;
• which applications employees are using;
• what level of access each employee requires;
• whether appropriate authentication controls are being applied; and
• whether access is removed when it is no longer needed.

IAM, SSO and MFA can work together to address these challenges.

IAM provides centralised control over identities and access. SSO reduces the number of separate credentials employees need to manage. MFA provides an additional authentication layer when credentials are compromised.

Together, these controls can significantly strengthen an accountancy firm's approach to identity security.

Strengthen cyber security with My1Login

As accountancy firms adopt more cloud applications, controlling identities and credentials becomes increasingly important.

My1Login helps organisations secure access to business applications through Identity and Access Management, Single Sign-On and Multi-Factor Authentication, reducing reliance on passwords while giving organisations greater control over application access.

My1Login can also provide SSO for applications that do not natively support standard identity protocols, helping organisations bring more of their application estate under centralised access control.

By reducing password-related risk, improving visibility of application access and simplifying the management of user identities, accountancy firms can strengthen security without creating unnecessary barriers for employees.

Discover how My1Login can help your accountancy firm secure access to its applications and sensitive information.