Discover top fintech news and events!
Subscribe to FinTech Weekly's newsletter
Read by executives at JP Morgan, Coinbase, Blackrock, Klarna and more
Many cybersecurity breaches occur under experts’ noses. Despite layers of security and planning, hackers still find a way to sneak into servers and extract information. This reality makes it more critical than ever to deploy stronger protections across businesses of all sizes. Zero-trust architecture (ZTA) is one of the most reliable and comprehensive approaches, especially in sensitive sectors like fintech.
The Importance of ZTA for Fintech
Financial enterprises have been subjected to approximately 200 significant cyberattacks from 2007 to 2022, ranging from cryptocurrency theft to ATM breaches. Fintech institutions store vast amounts of personally identifiable information, including sensitive details about millions of customers and clients. To threat actors, this is a gold mine.
This sense of urgency encourages financial institutions to implement ZTA. The infrastructure requires everyone to verify their credentials beyond a single password. It also goes beyond other defensive measures, such as multifactor authentication (MFA). ZTA’s security strategy relies on dissolving the assumption that every user is implicitly trustworthy.
Its strength lies in how strongly it verifies users beyond conventional measures. The framework forces teams to establish strict access controls, thereby reducing attack surfaces. Servers are restructured into microsegments, making them harder to breach and to move between laterally. Malicious individuals have fewer points of entry if the doors are locked to everyone, including those with access.
Fintech workforces need a continuous verification system that embraces least-privilege access to protect customer data and privacy. It is essential for establishing public confidence while upholding the company’s compliance responsibilities. ZTA helps demonstrate a safety-focused culture to customers and auditors alike.
Top Strategies for Implementing ZTA
Eventually, ZTA will become a standard because of its inarguable advantages for security and data privacy. Industry professionals should use these techniques to bolster fintech’s posture in digital spaces.
Use Strong Identity and Access Management (IAM)
IAM is one of ZTA's pillars. It establishes the precedent of always verifying and never assuming trust. Strong IAM includes MFA, single sign-on and role-based access controls, among others.
These fixtures allow security experts to serve as the single point of authority, minimizing potential entry points for threats. If a problem occurs, teams know who oversees everyone’s privileges and can spot anomalies effectively. In global fintech organizations, this is vital for quick triage in the event of a breach.
Industry analyses show that over 40% of management teams lack sufficient visibility into core identity risk indicators. This leads to workers having excessive permissions or an overreliance on legacy solutions. These negligences could increase the number of vulnerabilities in an attack surface, especially in an environment full of modern and evolving threat variants.
Leverage Microsegmentation
Microsegmentation is vital because the architecture acknowledges breaches are inevitable rather than completely preventable. Isolating business-critical information across different areas limits the amount of data that can be compromised. Even if a hacker enters one zone, the others remain protected with ZTA.
In fintech apps, front- and back-end interfaces can be separated to prevent large datasets from being extracted or deleted. New research demonstrates microsegmentation practices can even be applied to individual transactions, boosting security in e-banking.
Increase Device Visibility
With the proliferation of IoT, fintech companies are increasing the number of attack vectors hackers can use. ZTA only works if all devices in the institution have the same level of access controls and security. Therefore, analysts need to treat every device with the same stringency. To do this, teams can mandate the following strategies.
- Issue regular security updates to endpoint devices.
- Install antivirus and other security software to monitor for viruses and other attacks.
- Require standardized compliance across device types.
As many as 70% of attacks occur due to poor endpoint device protection, making ZTA even more crucial to implement in these spaces.
Enable Constant Data Encryption
A core tenet of ZTA is to assume that a breach is a matter of “when,” not “if.” This mindset makes robust data encryption a nonnegotiable component of the architecture, serving as the final and most critical line of defense. While ZTA focuses on rigorously controlling network access, encryption ensures that even if those controls are bypassed, the data remains secure and unusable to unauthorized parties.
This protection must be comprehensive, applying to all data by default, whether at rest or in transit. For a fintech company, whose entire business model relies on the integrity of its data — from customer information to transaction histories — encryption is the ultimate failsafe. It renders a successful network penetration largely worthless, directly protecting the company's digital assets and, most importantly, its customers' trust.
ZTA Integration Is Essential in Fintech
Fintech is a booming industry, and it will continue to grow as innovations such as artificial intelligence and machine learning become more ingrained in organizations. The potential for greater customer satisfaction and financial security is immense. However, it can only happen if analysts and IT teams collaborate to build an architecture that anticipates the growing threat of cybercriminals in critical sectors.
