What are InstaSafe solutions for FinTech?

Zero Trust Access

Zero Trust in Banking and Financial Services

Instasafe

Jun 1, 2020 • 3 min read

Zero Trust in Banking and Financial Services

"FinTech remain top target for cyber criminals"

The above lines have been persistent in their coverage every year since the advent of the cyber age and the introduction of the internet, and the inherent boons and banes it brought along. Given the sheer scale of monetary transactions and sensitivity of the data being processed by financial institutions, it is apparent that finance is the preferred target of cyber criminals. As such, the adoption of disruptive strategies centered around identity based security and Zero Trust Models in Banking is the need of the hour.

Financial Services Security at a Crossroads

Financial organizations well understand the importance of cyber security and have trained their cyber security professionals to manage their IT security operations. According to FSSCC (Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council), CISOs from financial organizations indicated that nearly 40% of their time and their team’s time was spent reconciling various cybersecurity and regulatory frameworks.

However, despite having advanced banking cybersecurity systems and well documented processes, FinTech companies are still outwitted by cybercriminals. For financial institutions, a security strategy that may also need to incorporate secure remote access usually lays a primary focus on their business priorities such as protection of sensitive data in transit, reducing risk and ensuring compliance. Hence organizations are in need for fintech security solutions that help them in securing their digital assets.

While these are important factors, the ultimate end users for a secure remote access solution are the workforces who depend on seamless access to applications and data via their thin client or any authorized devices. What matters most to them is gaining the freedom to work on the devices they choose, in the locations where they can be most effective and productive, without having to worry about security details, differences in device form factors or multiple access methods for various networks.

With an increase in digital initiatives and adoption of data protection regulations, FinTech can’t ignore having unpatched vulnerabilities, insufficient network security controls, third party connectivity risks and more.

Security leaders are still exploring best possible solutions that could improve their security posture as there are potential blind spots and vulnerabilities, weak links and unknown indicators of compromises. At the same time, insider threats from workforces are on the rise, as the number of insider attacks surpass external breach attempts. In this scenario, organizations need to develop a strategy that addresses the challenges exists in legacy remote access solutions due to the following factors:

Not all users within the organization require the same access to the corporate systems and resources. Senior executives and critical functional employees’ access requirements are different from developers and normal users.
Not all devices used for remote access have security controls adequately enforced and compliant to their IT security policies. Users may be using their own device (with BYOD policies) or corporate provided laptops or even accessing enterprise resources from their smartphones.
The applications and data that users require access may be located either in on-premise datacentres or on public cloud or SaaS services. They may require specific browser requirements or windows operating system services. And security needs to be tailored to the location of the applications as well as the workforces.
Compliance to regional regulations, industry best practices and data protection laws becomes necessary.
Security posture visibility across all users, locations, networks and devices.
Scalable purpose built infrastructure to handle peak and drastic changes in demand as well as traffic from new applications or services.

InstaSafe solutions for FinTech

InstaSafe security solutions address the key security challenges for FinTech organizations by securing remote access users, adhering to regulatory compliance requirements and providing cost effective unified security solutions. The unique features for InstaSafe security solutions are

Zero Trust Application Access – Application segmentation with enhanced security controls reduces the attack surface and ensures complete monitoring by ensuring audit, log and monitoring of each session for threat protection. Further, using this ‘default deny’ approach to frame your security policies, tends to further mitigate chances of exploitation.
Zero Trust Network Access – Enhanced user experience with cloud powered network access that easily segments traffic and enforce zero trust algorithms with added identity based protection solutions such as multi-factor authentications. By isolating network resources from the internet, and at the same time, segmenting access on ‘always verify’ basis, security solutions can endeavour to heavily restrict the occurrence, and effect of potential exploitative attacks.
Software Defined Perimeter – Customizable and manageable restricted network access stops all forms of network based security attacks such as DDoS. The SDP architecture further expands upon the “need to know” security model, providing additional layers of security like the Mutual Transport Layer Security

Financial Services Security at a Crossroads

Protection against blind spots, weak links and potential attacks

InstaSafe solutions for FinTech