The value of digital payment transactions is growing as the world's payment environment moves more and more away from cash. Over the past few years, BFSI (Banking, Financial Service, and Insurance) firms have continued to be a top target for hackers. In fact, the Sixth Annual Bank Survey found that more than 70% of fintech companies named information security as their top issue.
Globally, fintech firms saw 2.5 times more attacks in Q1 2022. The BFSI industry is prone to cyberattacks every day. Fintech firms carry some vital data. Cybercriminals know it. They aim to exploit your system’s flaw to access the data. The worst part is they will use it for financial fraud. A successful data breach causes penalties and reputation losses. It scares away your customers. It is even motivating cybersecurity in Fintech. How do you make a secure financial platform?
The financial industry is no stranger to data breaches. Financial institutions have access to millions of personally identifiable information (PII) records, which they must secure to the highest standard. The value of this data is open knowledge – hackers will actively search for existing cybersecurity weaknesses to gain unauthorized access to customers’ financial information.
The risk of a data breach is exceptionally high for financial organizations. Hackers recognize the high value financial data has on the dark web. Other cybercriminals pay significant amounts to get their hands on customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) and commit lucrative cybercrimes, like identity theft and insurance fraud. One of the most common ways cybercriminals gain access to this data is by exploiting data leaks.
According to our most recent State of Software Security Report, the financial services industry has fewer security flaws in its applications than last year. Great news, right? That said, the reduction in security flaws isn’t as significant as we would hope to see. The financial services industry has traditionally been recognized for having the least amount of security flaws.
Can you name the top cybersecurity risks for banking and investment? Most would probably list cyber attacks like phishing, credential theft, DDoS, and maybe ransomware. But would it surprise you to learn that there is something on the list that many in the banking and investment industry forget–and that’s client-side cybersecurity threats. You know the kind…the ones related to jQuery, cross-site scripting (XSS), JavaScript injections, formjacking, etc.
The global financial services industry is undergoing a seismic shift and not enough people are truly aware of what this means. By November of this year, banks and other financial institutions must have in place a new process for payment systems that uses the ISO 20022 standard instead of SWIFT. This must be active by November and by 2025, all financial institutions will have to be compliant.
