The world’s largest financial institutions have faced a surge in the number of security attacks over the past year, particularly from external sources, according to the 2006 Global Security Survey released by the Financial Services Industry practices of the member firms of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT). More than three-quarters (78 percent, up from 26 percent in 2005) of respondents confirmed a security breach from outside the organization and almost half (49 percent, up from 35 percent in 2005) experienced at least one internal breach. The fourth annual survey consisted of interviews with senior security officers from the world’s top 100 global financial institutions and acts as a global benchmark for the state of IT security in the financial sector. The top three most common attacks over the past 12 months included ones intended to extort some form of monetary gain. Phishing and pharming were employed for more than half (51 percent) of external attacks, followed by spyware/malware (48 percent). Insider fraud (28 percent) and customer data leaks (18 percent) were cited by respondents among the top three most common internal breaches.