FinTech security issues should be the primary concern of the financial services industry. Finance is undergoing a digital transformation that is being powered by cloud technology, creating FinTech. As a highly regulated industry, strict attention is needed towards the evolution of FinTech security issues in the cloud. This article will detail the most prevalent FinTech security issues and provide guidance on what you need to introduce to your cloud management to effectively protect your business and customers from threats.
The impact of cloud adoption for financial services
The impact of cloud adoption for financial services can be seen in the creation and acceleration of FinTech, a hybrid mix of financial services with technology. In a report created by PWC, there is a list of how FinTech has disrupted all aspects of the industry:
- Banking and capital markets
- Asset and wealth management
- Insurance
- Payments
- Funds transfer
This disruption has been caused by technology-focused start-ups and new market entrants who supply innovative products and services.
CEO of StackZone, Graham Calder, detailed this in a panel at AWS RE:Invent 2022: “The market is changing a lot. We’ve seen a huge move away from traditional retail and online banking via contact centers to more mobile and online-centric channels. This has also been accompanied by a big shift in cash into electronic payments. So less than 15% of transactions in the UK now actually involve cash. The banks have had to accommodate for this.”
How does the cloud impact FinTech cybersecurity?
There is a great need for responsibility with cloud computing. FinTech is a hugely attractive target for cybercriminals, and they take advantage of the cloud adoption for financial services. Without the necessary protection in place, the cloud can enable FinTech security issues, causing major damage.
FinTech security issues in 2023
Here are the most prevalent FinTech security challenges that our team are actively solving with our cloud security tool:
- Data Breaches
- DDoS Attacks
- Misconfigurations
- Supply Chain Attacks
How to mitigate security risks and raise FinTech security standards
Use and understand AWS security features
AWS provides a range of security features that encompass identity and access management, network security, and encryption. FinTech companies can leverage these features to safeguard their data and systems when operating in the cloud. StackZone automates AWS security features within our cloud management platform so you don’t have the continued pressure of ensuring you’re up-to-date with the latest security expertise.
Make it routine to monitor and update your AWS configurations
AWS configurations are the chosen settings and parameters used to define the behavior and characteristics of resources and services within the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment. These configurations include options for managing your security, scalability, performance, access controls, and more. By regularly monitoring them, you can ensure they are properly configured to provide you with the utmost protection against FinTech security issues. StackZone does this for you with our vulnerability assessments and our Guardrails chosen specifically for financial services. You can automate your configuration monitoring with StackZone and create productive action by enabling autoremediations.
Prioritize a Zero Trust model
A Zero Trust model is an approach that assumes no inherent trust within a network, system, or person, regardless of any context. With this approach, you apply strict authentication, authorization, and continuous verification, to each user and device. This prevents the chance of a security breach caused by unauthorized access. Additionally, the Zero Trust model enables fine-grained access controls, simplifying the administration and surveillance of permissions for sensitive data. StackZone’s strict in-built policies for managing the identity of people and machines make it easy to implement a Zero Trust model.
Use third-party security tools
It’s important to remember that gaps in cloud security knowledge function as vulnerabilities in security postures. Managing cloud security takes a huge amount of resources from your team as well as expertise. That’s why third-party security tools are great; they automate many of the manual security processes needed to reduce your risk level. Explore the AWS security tool that saves you time managing your security while making your cloud budget go further.
Have a cybersecurity focused mindset with visibility
When it comes to FinTech data protection, there needs to be a prioritization of cybersecurity from every member of your team, embedded into every process. You can do this with regular cybersecurity training for your team as well as keeping up to date with the evolving FinTech cybersecurity sphere.
How to raise FinTech security standards and maximize data protection
To summarize these steps; it’s essential to implement a secure cloud framework that implements AWS best practices. Doing this internally is not only overwhelming based on the amount of work needed but can require additional budget to upskill your cloud team.
That’s why we created our AWS blueprint for financial services and FinTech that secures your cloud environment quickly with continuous monitoring to ensure you remain compliant. We’ve helped our customers rapidly create a PCI DSS or SOC 2 cloud compliant framework in hours, not weeks. Suited to your industry’s requirements, our feature-rich platform provides in-depth insights on how to improve your cloud environment. Find out more about how StackZone can automate and monitor your cloud environment by reading the AWS blueprint.
Simplify the management of complex FinTech security threats with a solution that creates and maintains a secure cloud framework. Book a demo of StackZone to see how the platform supports your cloud management by effortlessly raising your FinTech security standards.
This article was written by Gastón Silbestein, Co-founder of StackZone
