Like every other sector that has evolved, thanks to the innovative digital transformation it has adopted, cybercrime has become a significant challenge in the finances of organizations. As per research by VMware’s Modern Bank Heist, there has been an increase of a whopping 238% in cyberattacks on companies’ financial sectors since the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A series of cyberattacks witnessed recently on the DeFi platform illustrates how fintech companies have emerged as a prominent target and a big prize to cyber criminals. Particularly when it comes to fintech apps, there is often a huge possibility for profit. Attackers can also do greater damage by going after tech users, who may have adopted comparatively less stringent cybersecurity measures. One malicious software can deprive fintech consumers of their assets and ruin the reputation of the financial organization.
Considering the seriousness of the constantly evolving threat, fintech companies are now required to reconsider their approach including their identity and access control strategies, in order to ensure sure that their platforms are equally trusted by consumers and businesses. It is crucial to implement the right controls to maintain an organization's security posture as this industry continues to transition to the cloud, but doing so presents a unique set of problems.
Why Are FinTech Applications Hard to Secure?
While cloud development has emerged as a breakthrough, garnering the opportunity for new apps to be made possible and existing apps to operate more smoothly than before, it has also rapidly increased the number of potential attack surfaces and created additional opportunities for configuration errors, human mistake, and identity management problems.
Any form of change makes a company vulnerable at the cloud scale, whether it is upgrading an outdated program to a new and better cloud-based architecture or enhancing current capabilities. Due to the fact that an infrastructure's attack surface now expands and is dynamic in the cloud, this can further increase the explosion radius of a single attack.
Fintech applications must also adhere to strict regularity standards that differ from country to country and frequently incur heavy fines for noncompliance.
Since operating in the financial sector requires a greater standard of accountability towards clients and the entire sector, which can be a challenging task, organizations must assure visibility, dependability, and proper configuration as a result of fintech.
Fintech companies need to maintain a tight grasp on security and privacy from the very beginning of growth, especially as third-party services continue to expand, in order to remain competitive in this extremely crowded market.
How can FinTech Sector be Secured?
Since fintech organizations are more dependent on vendors and other partners like manufacturers, suppliers, and subcontractors and an increasingly complex supply chain. This further could be a reason for the system being exposed to potential attackers.
Companies frequently lack visibility into their third- and fourth-party partners, and consequently, the large amount of data that is available to them. Interoperability is crucial in today's software-centric world, but it frequently makes firms even more vulnerable to attackers.
Fintech developers are thus advised to continuously be vigilant for potential problems with the software supply chain and the security risks that third-party services may pose to their companies.
We are listing more measures that could be adopted by fintech organizations to safeguard themselves from potential cyber-attacks that could hinder their security:
- Companies must be aware of the entities that have access to their data and applications, along with their location and what they do with it. It will be crucial to integrate identity and access management (IAM) systems as dangers inside fintech continue to develop significantly.
- An organization must have the appropriate technology and tactics in place to safeguard and comply with industry regulations as well as to consistently protect its sensitive data, especially in the cloud. IAM systems, for instance, offer businesses protection without impeding progress or burdening their teams with the extra workload.
Unfortunately, the security risks offered by financially motivated cybercriminals will only get more advanced over time. The fintech sector must adopt a proactive security posture and a strong identity and access management strategy that can handle the complexity and scope of today's cloud security concerns in order to meet the pressure to protect sensitive client data.
