The corporate treasury function, with its direct access to financial assets and critical payment systems, remains a prime target for cybercriminals. As threats ranging from sophisticated phishing campaigns and Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams to ransomware attacks and direct system breaches continue to escalate in frequency and complexity, the traditional cybersecurity posture focused primarily on prevention is proving insufficient. While robust preventative measures are undeniably crucial, treasurers in 2025 must champion a broader strategy: building true cyber resilience. This means cultivating an organizational ability not just to block attacks, but to anticipate, withstand, rapidly respond to, and swiftly recover from cyber incidents, ensuring minimal disruption to critical treasury operations and safeguarding company assets.
Why Prevention Alone Isn’t Enough
Cyber attackers are persistent, innovative, and well-resourced. They constantly adapt their tactics to circumvent even the most advanced preventative controls. Several factors underscore why a prevention-only approach is a dangerous gamble:
- Sophistication of Attacks: Attackers are leveraging AI, social engineering, and deep technical expertise to craft highly targeted and convincing attacks that can bypass standard defenses.
- Human Element: Employees, despite training, can inadvertently click on malicious links, fall prey to social engineering, or make errors that create vulnerabilities. The “human firewall” is never impenetrable.
- Insider Threats: Malicious or negligent insiders with legitimate access can pose significant risks.
- Supply Chain Vulnerabilities: Compromises in third-party vendors or software providers can create backdoors into corporate systems, including those used by treasury.
- The “Assumption of Breach” Mindset: Leading cybersecurity frameworks now operate under the assumption that a breach is not a matter of if, but when. This necessitates a strong focus on detection and response.
Given this reality, while striving for 100% prevention is a noble goal, preparing for the eventuality of a successful attack is a pragmatic necessity.
The Pillars of Cyber Resilience in Treasury
Building a cyber-resilient treasury function rest on several interconnected pillars, aligned with established cybersecurity frameworks like NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology):
1. Identify and Protect (Strengthened Prevention)
This pillar encompasses traditional preventative measures but with a heightened focus on treasury-specific risks.
- Robust Access Controls: Implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all treasury systems, enforcing the principle of least privilege, and regularly reviewing access rights.
- Secure Payment Processes: Segregation of duties, dual approvals for payments, call-back verifications for large or unusual transactions, and secure payment initiation channels (e.g., dedicated bank portals, host-to-host with strong encryption, API security).
- Network Segmentation: Isolating critical treasury systems and payment networks from the broader corporate network to limit the blast radius of an attack.
- Regular Security Awareness Training: Continuous training for treasury staff on identifying phishing attempts, BEC scams, and other social engineering tactics. This should include simulated attacks.
- Patch Management and Vulnerability Scanning: Ensuring all treasury-related software and systems are promptly patched and regularly scanned for vulnerabilities.
2. Detect: Early Warning Systems for Treasury
The ability to quickly detect a breach or an ongoing attack is critical to minimizing its impact.
- Advanced Threat Detection Tools: Implementing solutions like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS) that are configured to monitor treasury-specific activities and alerts.
- Transaction Monitoring: Utilizing real-time transaction monitoring tools that use AI and machine learning to flag anomalous payment activities or deviations from established patterns.
- Proactive Threat Hunting: Employing internal or external security teams to proactively search for signs of compromise within treasury systems, rather than just waiting for alerts.
Clear Escalation Paths: Establishing clear procedures for escalating suspected security incidents within the treasury and to the broader cybersecurity team.
3. Respond: Coordinated Action in a Crisis
A well-defined and practiced incident response plan is crucial for managing an attack effectively.
- Treasury-Specific Incident Response Plan (IRP): This plan should detail specific steps for treasury personnel in various attack scenarios (e.g., suspected fraudulent payment, TMS compromise, ransomware attack). It should cover containment, eradication, and initial recovery actions.
- Designated Response Team: Clearly identifying individuals within treasury and IT/security who are responsible for leading and coordinating the response.
- Communication Protocols: Establishing clear internal and external communication plans, including how to communicate with banks, law enforcement, regulatory bodies, and potentially affected stakeholders. This includes out-of-band communication methods if primary systems are compromised.
- Forensic Readiness: Ensuring that systems are configured to preserve logs and evidence that would be needed for a forensic investigation.
4. Recover: Restoring Operations and Learning Lessons
The ability to swiftly recover critical treasury functions is paramount to business continuity.
- Robust Backup and Recovery Procedures: Regularly backing up critical treasury data and systems (including TMS configurations, payment templates, and historical transaction data) and ensuring these backups are stored securely and are regularly tested for restorability.
- Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for Treasury: This plan should outline procedures for performing essential treasury functions (e.g., critical payments, liquidity management) manually or through alternative means if primary systems are unavailable.
- Contingency Banking Relationships: Having arrangements with backup banking partners or alternative payment channels that can be activated in an emergency.
- Post-Incident Review and Lessons Learned: After any incident, conducting a thorough review to understand the root cause, identify weaknesses in defenses or response, and implement corrective actions to improve resilience moving forward.
The Treasurer’s Role in Championing Cyber Resilience
While cybersecurity is often led by the CISO or IT department, the treasurer has a vital role to play in championing and embedding cyber resilience specifically within the treasury domain:
- Advocacy and Budget: Advocating for necessary investments in treasury-specific security technologies and resources.
- Policy Development: Collaborating with IT/security to develop and enforce robust cybersecurity policies tailored to treasury risks and processes.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Working closely with IT, security, risk management, legal, and internal audit to ensure a coordinated approach to cyber resilience.
- Fostering a Security-Conscious Culture: Leading by example and promoting a culture of security awareness and vigilance within the treasury team.
- Understanding Third-Party Risk: Ensuring rigorous due diligence and ongoing monitoring of the cybersecurity practices of key third-party providers, including banks, TMS vendors, and other FinTech partners.
Resilience as a Strategic Imperative
In the high-threat landscape of 2025, cyber resilience is not merely an IT concern; it is a fundamental business imperative and a critical component of operational risk management for corporate treasury. By moving beyond a purely preventative mindset and embracing a holistic strategy that encompasses robust identification and protection, rapid detection, coordinated response, and swift recovery, treasurers can significantly enhance their department’s ability to withstand and recover from cyberattacks.
This proactive approach not only safeguards financial assets and maintains operational continuity but also protects the company’s reputation and reinforces the treasurer’s role as a prudent steward of corporate resources in an increasingly perilous digital world.