The financial services segment is the most important target for cyber criminals, making it one of the many sectors that need to take a substantial stand for the security of their web applications.

The cyber criminals have numerous opportunities at hand to violate and breach your website and thus, your customers. Despite the fact, a good number of financial firms put themselves at risk by not investing in the security of their web applications and its top practices.

 As per the  Security Spending Benchmarks Project Report, web application security accounts for less than 10% of the total security expenditure in nearly 36% firms. On the other hand, 33% aren’t even aware of what portion of their security expenditure is allocated to web applications.

Stated below are some of the best practices that the financial sector must follow for ultimate web security:

Improve Risk Assessment

Financial firms must analyse their web transactions, and determine the extent of risk based on types of transaction conducted. They must jointly develop risk alleviation strategies.  Make certain to evaluate detailed attributes such as:

·         Type of customers,

·         Capacity and capability of transactions,

·         Sensitivity of information and current level of security,

·         User-friendliness and customer experience, and

·         How mobile devices are connecting with the environment. 

Beyond considering the monetary losses, also think of liabilities, risks and reputation. Make it a practice and perform this assessment every year to determine probable impact and required levels of security.

Establish Rigorous Authentication Standards

The threats are increasing and growing stronger. Hence, the need for stronger authentication is greater than ever. Growing above usernames and passwords for wire transfers, financial firms took over alternate solutions such as OTP (One Time Passcodes) tokens. However, even these methods aren’t effective anymore, particularly against man-in-the-browser hits.

There are a range of advanced techniques that offer desired level of protection in two ways:

·         Using an individual communication channel under a user or

·         By depending upon the superior behaviour-based deception discovery engines that can instantly sense the anomalies in transactions or website navigation.

Undertaking a Layered Approach

It is astounding to learn that there is no solitary corroboration or conventional fraud discovery solution to bring progressive malicious attacks on banks and other financial institutions to a standstill. What financial firms need is an additional layering of diverse, corresponding safety measures and technologies. Some examples include:

·         Well-built authentication,

·         Observable fraud discovery,

·         Out-of-band substantiation of transactions, 

·         Mobile verification and extensive confirmation digital SSL certificates — these offer the most reliable means of defending customer information and dealings in a financial surrounding.  

At Lean Security, we offer comprehensive protection of applications within the financial sector against unauthorized access and introduction of malicious codes.

Our services include, but are not limited to, application security testing, web security scanning, manual web penetration testing and more.

For more information, email us at info@leansecurity.com.au or call +61 (0) 2 8231 6635 for further information.