With incidents becoming widespread, banks are putting aside rivalries and collaborating more closely on how to block intruders, said Ed Powers, a principal at Deloitte & Touche LLP in New York who specializes in information security and risk management.

“These attacks have started to go beyond nuisance,” Powers said in an interview. While none has resulted in a “catastrophe,” it’s reasonable to foresee something much more disruptive ahead, he said.

Spy Agencies

Mobile and online banking are adding vulnerability, as are customers and vendors who link directly to data systems, Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin told bankers and regulators last week during an Atlanta speech. That has led to “concerted cooperative work between government and financial institutions,” and the Department of Homeland Security has provided firms with technical assistance, she said.

The biggest U.S. banks work closely with the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Defense Department and governments around world to address “hundreds of thousands” of cyber attacks, according to Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of New York-based JPMorgan.

“It’s a big deal; it’s going to get worse,” Dimon, 56, said during an Oct. 10 panel discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Computers in 10 years are going to be a hundred thousand times faster. And so they’ll be able to do calculations quicker and get through quicker.”

Opportunity Cost

Cyber threats could cost firms the opportunity to improve their systems and save money. Travelers Cos., which represents the insurance industry in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, said Feb. 19 it may forgo new and more efficient technologies if they further expose the New York-based company to attacks.

A group calling itself Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has claimed responsibility for the most recent intrusions on U.S. banks, saying they’re in response to a video uploaded to Google Inc.’s YouTube ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad and offending some Muslims. NBC News and former Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, have said Iran may have been behind these attacks.

The group hit U.S. bank websites with a new round of denial-of-service attacks on Feb. 25, according to Rodney Joffe, senior vice president at Neustar Inc. of Sterling, Va., and Carl Herberger, a vice president of security solutions at Tel Aviv-based Radware Ltd., who both provide security to some of the targeted banks.