In the wake of highly publicized cyber-breaches, such as the data theft from 34 European banks in July, bank management may be more focused than ever on security threats from outside the bank.

At a time when financial institutions are focusing on the new dangers of mobile fraud, an old enemy keeps rearing its head: check fraud, as seen in the recent discovery of a three-year, $15 million check-kiting scheme.

As a former Federal Reserve executive as well as currently a director for a regional bank, I’ve had the unique opportunity to observe how fraud in the financial arena has evolved.

Customer-centric strategies are evolving with the ever increasing amount of available information, including data that is generated outside of bank interactions with other third-parties such as communications providers or social networks.

Financial institutions are increasingly adopting mobile authentication for online/Internet banking and deploying mobile platforms that enable customers to conduct banking transactions anytime, anywhere.

I have recently spent a lot of time talking about KYC (Know Your Client), AML (Anti Money Laundering, often confused with ALM which is Asset and Liability Management), Client Onboarding, PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons) and SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports).

Cybersecurity is a large and complex problem, and as more banking operations move into a digital environment, the threat will only grow.

With all of the recent retailer data breaches, card-related fraud is clearly top-of-mind for financial institutions.

In today’s hyper-connected world, the fight against payments fraud, money laundering and other cyber threats is challenging for banks and other financial institutions around the world.

The conversation about identity theft is growing – Hollywood even explored the topic in the 2013 movie “Identity Thief” – and in that conversation is a bankable loyalty solution.

Businesses increasingly rely on the Internet to run the systems that carry goods to market, provide gas for cars and engage in trade.

The list of acronyms is daunting: FFIEC, FRB, FDIC, OCC, NCUA, CFPB, ACSSS, CSBS, NASCUS and SLC.

The high stakes world of bank cyber security can take inspiration from the traditional bank vault.

Despite the best efforts of financial institutions around the globe, online fraud continues to happen.

Banks go to great lengths to safeguard their customer’s personal information and finances but the rapid adoption of multi-channel strategies increases the pressure on current authentication practices.

Distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) attacks against banks grab headlines, but so far, most of the estimated $110 billion annual cost from cyber crime seems to come from other schemes.

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Fraud is endemic to the global payments system and the tools financial institutions have historically used to fight it are marginal at best.

As fast as banks plug the holes in their security dams, criminals are finding alternative ways to take over customer accounts.

Cybercrooks are stealing as much as $1 billion a year from small and mid-sized bank accounts in the United States and Europe, according to Don Jackson, a security expert at Dell SecureWorks.