Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Mick Mulvaney has testified on numerous occasions about the risk of data breaches; in December he helped put a freeze on data collection, though collection resumed a few weeks later without much talk or solutions; Mr. Mulvaney has not been clear on the types of breaches that have occurred and what has been done to plug the holes; experts believe this could be more about politics so the bureau is cast in a bad light. Source.
Banks have started to implement behavioral biometrics more and more as it is seamless for customers and helps to better detect fraud; behavioral biometrics firms like BioCatch has provided banks with the type of security they like, customers cannot see if but it also is harder for criminals to spoof; BioCatch reviews more than 5 billion transactions per month and has about 60 million users in their system; another reason banks love this type of security is the privacy regulations are not as strict, the data is not personally identifiable and is based on type of actions. Source.
According to new data from the Federal Reserve mobile payments have seen a big growth among consumers but fraud has also risen; the shorter clearing period looks to have opened banks on the Zelle network to more potential for fraudulent transactions; Zelle has been using multi-layer and multi-factor authentication during the enrollment process; as banks look to innovate to suit their customer needs they are also looking at newer ways to protect themselves against threats that are evolving just as quick. Source.
Only 8 percent of cybersecurity heads at U.S. financial firms report directly to the CEO; a survey done by the Financial Services Information Sharing & Analysis Center showed the lack of access for cyber heads and pointed to other vulnerabilities; one of the biggest areas for improvement of defenses is better employee training as people can click the wrong link and open systems up; most firms, 54 percent, compile quarterly security reports while 18 percent do bi-annual reports and 16 percent do annual reports. Source.
Bank of America’s Cathy Bessant says the bank’s talent is just as important as the technology they implement; the bank plans to spend more than $600mn on cybersecurity alone and says to TearSheet, “Sometime’s theres a misunderstanding that cyber defense is somehow all technology, and it’s not,” she said. “It’s judgment and how to assess a threat and think about mitigation every single day.”; technology is not only making the bank more efficient but it has also forced the bank to retrain employees for new technology skills, making the bank stronger overall; the bank is making a big push into AI and currently has more than 80 patents related to the new technology. Source.
Credit bureaus have had a tough past year with the Equifax breach of customer data and new legislation in the U.S. looking to increase competition by allowing lenders to use different sources; changing the credit bureau system is not as easy as it may sound as they have been intertwined in the financial services system for a long time; lenders still use the bureaus for a large majority of lending decisions, even though some alternative bureaus have seen traction; the breach at Equifax could have a lasting effect because people did have a lot of trust in the company to secure their sensitive information like social security numbers; as data sharing in financial services becomes commonplace a premium will need to be placed on how that data is secured. Source.
Options Clearing Corporation has set a three year plan to put their business on a cloud based system; the reason for the move is concerns over cybersecurity; the company clears more than 460mn trades a month and has recently added cryptocurrency futures; cloud based servers are cheaper and more secure than in house IT systems. Source.
A new report by the Council of Economic Advisers said cyberattacks cost the U.S. between $56bn and $109bn in 2016; the council's report represents between 0.31% and 0.58% of the 2016 U.S. gross domestic product being at risk; the financial sector had the biggest number of attacks seeing about 471 breaches in 2016; the report made an ominous statement on detecting threats saying, “Due to common vulnerabilities, instances of security breaches occur across firms and in patterns that are difficult to anticipate.” Source.
Writing a piece for Crowdfund Insider BankMobile’s Co-Founder, President and Chief Strategy Officer Luvleen Sidhu talks through the current banking makeover; new technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain are becoming more prevalent; competition in the digital banking space is beginning to increase as banks look to close branches and move more focus online; banks are currently upgrading their cybersecurity defenses in the wake of the recent Equifax breach; these changes and more are happening now as banks better understand their customers and look to become more efficient. Source.
Consumers have submitted hundreds of complaints about the p2p payments app because they are unable to sign up or access money that was sent to them; the reason behind the issues is Zelle’s security structure is very similar to that of a bank; if something doesn’t match perfectly or the users bank is outside the Zelle network then its possible they will not be able to sign on; Zelle initially launched inside their bank network only, but in September they launched their stand alone app and thats when the issues began; the company is looking at improving the process but says they will not compromise their security. Source.