by Rebeca | Jul 5, 2023 | Cliente, cybersecurity, fintech, soffid, trends
Nowadays, financial technology companies (fintech) have revolutionized transactions and financial management. However, this rapid growth brings the urgent need for robust cybersecurity measures. As fintech becomes a prime target for cybercriminals, proactive protection of transactions and financial data is critical.
Security Challenges in Fintech
Fintech companies face data security risks due to their handling of sensitive information, including banking data, credit card numbers, and transactions. Consequently, they become attractive targets for unauthorized access. Additionally, sophisticated phishing attacks take advantage of users’ trust in fintech, seeking to obtain personal and financial information. This poses an ongoing risk of identity theft, as attackers impersonate legitimate fintech entities for fraudulent activities. Moreover, fintech’s heavy reliance on technology exposes them to potential infrastructure security breaches. These breaches can occur due to software vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, or a lack of security updates.
Solutions for Strong Cybersecurity
To enhance cybersecurity in fintech, it is important to implement robust authentication measures such as multifactor authentication (MFA) and biometrics. These methods restrict access to authorized users, providing an extra layer of security against compromised accounts. Empowering fintech users with security best practices is crucial. Educating them on identifying fraudulent messages, creating strong passwords, and protecting their devices reduces the risk of falling into cyber traps.
Regular security audits play a vital role in identifying vulnerabilities within the IT infrastructure. By conducting these audits frequently, fintech companies can promptly apply patches and updates to defend against the latest cyber threats.
Collaborating with cybersecurity experts is highly recommended. Partnering with specialized firms allows access to services like risk assessments, penetration testing, and security consulting. This collaboration helps identify and mitigate potential threats effectively.
Adhering to relevant security standards and regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ensures the proper protection of users’ personal and financial data. Compliance with these regulations is essential for maintaining trust and safeguarding sensitive information.
As fintech companies continue to reshape the financial landscape, prioritizing cybersecurity is of utmost importance. By addressing data security risks, phishing attacks, infrastructure vulnerabilities, and implementing robust authentication methods, these companies can establish a strong defense against cyber threats. Collaborating with cybersecurity experts and adhering to relevant regulations further enhances protection.
At SOFFID, we understand the criticality of cybersecurity in today’s digital world. Our expertise and comprehensive solutions can help safeguard your company’s security and data integrity.
Shall we talk?
by Rebeca | Mar 11, 2021 | Definitions, soffid
A compliance audit is a comprehensive review and evaluation of a business or organization’s compliance with a voluntary compliance framework (e.g., SOC 2) or a regulatory requirement (e.g., GDPR). The scope of a compliance audit depends on which framework/regulation the auditor is evaluating against and, for some frameworks, what type of information the organization stores and how they utilize it.
Many companies still do not appreciate the interconnection of security and compliance. Both are often considered cost centers, and that paints a scowl on the face of many Chief Financial Officers. However, there is a different way of looking at compliance (or its negative counterpart, non-compliance).
We can divide compliance into the categories of obvious and not-so-obvious costs.
The obvious costs are easy to understand:
- Track – Keeping a close watch on the requirements to maintain compliance
- Mitigate – Correcting any deficiencies
- Fines – Monetary penalties for compliance failure
Some of the hidden costs include:
- Additional internal audits – To verify that everything is in order as well as the costs of reworking
- Business disruption – Due to a regulator lockdown of a business unit or the entire organization,
- Productivity loss – The time employees need to focus on remediation
- Brand loss – Due to bad media coverage, and this leads to customer erosion
These costs ensure that your organization is equipped with the correct resources that are required to maintain and confirm there are no compliance slips. The biggest hidden cost, though, is the loss that is not accounted for due to non-standardized operating procedures and a lack of standardized control.
In information technology, this is known as secure configuration management. An organization may be operating at lower efficiency without being noticed until regulatory compliance audits unravel the cracks in the IT ecosystem. This is the “close to broken” setting mentioned earlier.
Fortunately, the journey to compliance need not be a burdensome task. For example, in the banking industry, digital checking mechanisms enable institutions to track all the risks and ensure compliance by applying the appropriate controls. Comprehensive dashboards are used to ensure that banks can effectively monitor and mitigate compliance issues before they cross into non-compliant territory.
To reduce business risk by ensuring systems are properly configured or hardened to meet with your internal regulatory and legislative compliance standards, Secure Configuration Management is a must.
A secure configuration management tool combines network monitoring and Endpoint Protection methodology to compare monitored systems against an approved configuration baseline or a golden image. Deviation from this baseline, known as test failures, can usually be corrected with little or no human intervention. Secure configuration management is truly a need-to-have based solution.
Secure configuration management offers benefits to organizations, not only from the cost-avoidance standpoint of non-compliance but also from increased organizational efficiency and agility.
Attacks
It is important to note that while many vulnerabilities are “common,” there is a more critical aspect of maintaining compliance to protect your organization. The largest segments of attack types are targeted. This type of attack means your organization is singled out, and the attacker has a specific interest in your business or your intellectual property.
A targeted attack takes time and planning, sometimes months, to lay the groundwork and prepare. Attackers still use commodity techniques to probe the systems in your organization, looking for the best path to exploit, but their methods are specifically tailored to your infrastructure, your processes and your personnel. The main reason that targeted attacks are effective is because organizations struggle to follow basic security practices and properly institute measurable security policies.
Could you imagine how much less risk your organization would have if you could eliminate 99.99% of attacks?
How Soffid Can Help
Soffid makes compliance to security standard easier with the broadest set of compliance and security policies that accelerate securing your infrastructure and knowing where the weak points are. We update these policies as standards change and allow you to customize the test and assessment results to better meet your individual needs, as you get a giant head-start on your security policy and framework as well as the flexibility to make it your own.
Sources:
(1) Security Boulevard
(2) Forbes
