{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,20]],"date-time":"2026-04-20T16:42:18Z","timestamp":1776703338144,"version":"3.51.2"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"group-title":"SSRN","reference-count":0,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:p>Building societies sit in an unusual position within UK financial services. They are mutual institutions-owned by their members, answerable to those members, and restricted in what they can do by legislation that has not fundamentally changed since 1986. Yet the cyber threats they now face bear no relationship to that settled, conservative character. Ransomware operators do not distinguish between a FTSE-listed bank and a regional society with eight branches; state-sponsored threat actors target financial infrastructure as a system, not institution by institution; and the fraud that flows from compromised credentials costs victims regardless of whether the account is held at Barclays or a 50,000-member mutual in the north of England. This paper examines what that threat environment actually looks like for UK building societies, how it intersects with a regulatory framework that has grown considerably more demanding since 2022, and what a realistic programme of cyber resilience looks like when the security team numbers fewer than ten people. Drawing on the<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.6517278","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,20]],"date-time":"2026-04-20T15:46:49Z","timestamp":1776700009000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["CYBERSECURITY IN UK BUILDING SOCIETY FINANCIAL SERVICES"],"prefix":"10.2139","author":[{"given":"jay","family":"prakash","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"78","container-title":[],"original-title":[],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,20]],"date-time":"2026-04-20T15:46:49Z","timestamp":1776700009000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/abstract=6517278"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.6517278","relation":{},"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"subtype":"preprint"}}