Fortifying the Vault: Navigating Cybersecurity Challenges in Financial Services

The financial world has changed dramatically in recent years. The proliferation of fintech startups, online payments and open banking—which allows access and control of consumer accounts through third-party applications—has reshaped the competitive landscape, heightening both innovation and customer expectations.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that 61% of customer banking executives say that customer expectations continue to rise, and 45% admit they’re struggling to keep up.¹ Read more to learn how to secure your competitive advantage in the finance industry by securing your ecosystems.

More Money, More (Security) Problems

In today’s fast-paced and fragmented financial world, customers expect convenient, personalized account access virtually anytime, anywhere. And the organizations that provide the most seamless personalized experiences—without compromising customer trust—win. However, this decentralized financial ecosystem comes with risks, including:

• Securing personalized experiences: Customers expect personalized experiences from their financial providers. However, tailoring customer interactions requires that companies leverage personal data as well as innovative tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) to offer personalized insights. This comes with added data-security implications.
• Protecting real-time transactions and identities: Real-time financial transactions and anywhere, anytime account access are now table stakes for finance organizations. However, when transactions and account access happen instantaneously, robust security measures must be in place to prevent payment fraud and identity theft. These include multi-factor authentication and verification mechanisms, encryption, real-time monitoring, secure storage and access controls.
• Optimizing omnichannel experiences: A true omnichannel experience allows seamless navigation between branches, mobile apps and websites and keeps all customer data inside the platform so customers don’t lose progress. Connecting data correctly and securely over a high-performance network is key to success.
• Complicated regulatory environment: Finance is a high-stakes industry, and the complex web of laws and oversight mechanisms that comprise the financial regulatory environment reflects that. Navigating this intricate landscape requires financial institutions to stay informed, adapt to changes and maintain compliance to protect customer trust and brand reputation.
• Securing hybrid environments: Remote work raises its own set of security considerations. Employees must feel empowered to securely access systems wherever they’re working, collaborate securely across hybrid environments and prevent and mitigate threats.
• Targeted cyberthreats: Finance is a highly targeted industry, as a successful cyberattack could be very profitable for bad actors. Organizations should build up their digital defenses against data breaches, phishing, malware, ransomware and DDoS attacks—all of which plague the sector.

Secure the Bank, Don’t Break It

The challenges above are numerous, but they’re also addressable with a comprehensive security posture. For example, Lumen can help finance organizations to:

Protect platforms, perimeters and people: Lumen solutions intelligently integrate network and security to create personalized, secure experiences that connect digital and in-branch ecosystems while safeguarding data. In addition to protecting customer experiences, employees can collaborate productively with Lumen secure collaboration solutions, protected endpoints, and uninterrupted system uptime to stay ahead of the competition.

Partner with experts: According to a recent survey of financial institutions, 75% percent of organizations report they are struggling to fill vacant positions that require digital skills.² Enhance your security strategy and free up your internal staff by applying our extensive experience learned protecting the Lumen network and leveraging Black Lotus Labs® advanced threat intelligence.

Mind compliance gaps: Highly trained, experienced security compliance professionals from Lumen can help you navigate shifting regulations and get ahead of issues before they arise so you can spend less time worrying about compliance and more time focusing on your business. Lumen Compliance Readiness Assessment provides you with a detailed gap analysis and plan of action for remediation to help you prepare for risk assessments and maintain compliance standards.

¹Genesys. New Banking Study Reveals Growth Benefits of Personalization, Innovation and Trust in Customer Experience. November 2022
²FinTech. Financial services “held back” by lack of digital skills. July 2023

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