In large enterprises, often there are departments tailored exclusively to ensuring compliance, monitoring the data flow, and safeguarding security. Still, given the end-to-end integrations number that’s required to provide competitive services today, PII security is a problem.
Additionally, existing regulations complicate the way companies can transfer clients’ business data outside of the United States, which deters them from hiring talent or working with vendors abroad. However, it’s not the location that defines the vendor’s safety but a solid knowledge of secure development process organization.
Here is a checklist to help with quickly examining whether your company or your vendors have secure processes:
- Do you have background checks for employees? The security begins with your physical office. Pass-entry system and background checks are a must.
- Who can access client data and why? Use an access level system to restrict unintended data exposure. Remember the similar cases of Redtail, Fiserv, BlackRock, and Voya.
- Do you use a VPN and multiple internet connectivity channels? Clients’ access to their data should be reliable and secure as well. In addition, it’s worth monitoring who accesses the data in real time.
- Can you provide masked data or a staging environment? Some vendors can access production data via a staging machine only, which enables them to work with obfuscated data as if they’re real.
- Have your employees passed any security certifications or training? Building secure software means keeping up with new threats. Exchanging experiences and self-development are a must for security professionals.
Of course, these are not all the regulations that comprise data security.
Cloud Providers And Shared Responsibility Model
High security standards and client demand make cloud adoption imperative. The shared responsibility model establishes high-level delineation of security responsibilities between the customer and the cloud service provider (CSP). If you don’t know that delineation, this may cause a security breach.
The responsibility breakdown is dependent on the CSP you want to partner with. The information about what responsibilities each cloud provider will have when you start collaborating with them can be found on their websites. For example, Microsoft Azure outlines that the customer always takes responsibility for data, accounts, accesses, and endpoints. Besides that, other responsibilities are dependent on the type of deployment: on-premises, infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and software-as-a-service. The picture above illustrates the responsibility areas of each side for every deployment type.
Takeaways
It’s impossible to operate in wealthtech without a clear understanding of the regulatory aspects. The intricate rules and shared responsibility areas give rise to potential data security risks. To mitigate them, companies need a robust and comprehensive guide with explanations, comparisons, and best practices. Download our free white paper Fintech Regulatory Aspects and Adopting Cloud to obtain more detail about this subject and help your startup combat threats before they happen.
Vasyl Soloshchuk is CEO and co-owner at INSART, a fintech and Java engineering company. Vasyl is also the author of WealthTech Club, which conducts research into Fortune 500 and start-up robo-advisor and wealth management companies.