Cybersecurity threats in financial reporting: An empirical analysis of vulnerabilities and countermeasures

Banks and other financial institutions in Jordan are prone to continuous cybersecurity breaches on their financial accounting statements. The impact of cybersecurity breaches on financial statements is directly related to accounting information's susceptibility to cyber-hackers. Cybersecurity breaches affect the quality of financial accounting statements. Thus, this study aims to investigate the impact of cybersecurity on the quality of financial accounting statements among selected banks in Jordan. Two types of datasets and sampling approaches were used. The primary approach consists of 506 data points about cybersecurity breaches at three banks in Jordan from 2012 to 2022, while the secondary approach employs a survey to sample 170 participants. The finding revealed that the cybersecurity breaches had a significant impact on the quality of financial accounting statements. The cybersecurity breaches had positive and significant impacts on the balance sheet, cash flow, and profit and loss. These breaches include accidental information disclosure (ADID) and stealing the encryption key (STEK), which mostly target the balance sheet. In addition to mischievous internal opening access (MVIA), database breach (DTBB), and man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM) that mostly target the cash flow statement. Lastly, the malware with encryption (MWWE) and a malicious external attack (MVEA) are aimed at profit and loss accounting. These variables were found to have a significant impact on the quality of financial accounting statements, except MVIA, which had no significant impact. It is suggested that a rapid response to a cyberattack can aid in minimizing the breach's impact on the bank's financial statements and reputation.