FinTech’s impact on cyber response and recovery

Large-scale cyberattacks on critical financial infrastructure are a major threat to the safety and stability of the global economy. Recently, a panel discussion at DTCC’s 2018 FinTech Symposium brought together a group of cybersecurity experts to offer insights into the strategic shifts and leading practices in cyber response and recovery in financial institutions as well as FinTech’s general impact on cybersecurity. The panel honed in on three main ideas:

  • The importance of collaboration – in a complex and interconnected marketplace, everything is part of a bigger ecosystem, and that interconnectedness impacts others who are part of the process. As a result of these multiple possible points of attack, cyber response and recovery must also be a collaborative effort between individual firms, the industry as a whole and consumers, with each knowing their responsibilities and fulfilling them.
  • The impact of FinTech – FinTech is a double-edged sword, providing a growing number of entry points through which cybercriminals can access customer data and systems as well as providing new technological solutions to address cybersecurity issues. The experts agreed that the key for FinTech moving forward is to create smart digital products that account for cybersecurity during the design phase.
  • Leveraging new innovations – new innovations are starting to tip the balance in favor of FinTechs and financial institutions. For example, artificial intelligence has become a smart way for attacks to be identified and countered before damage is done, and blockchain offers the potential to expedite recovery measures after an attack occurs. It will be important for FinTechs to fully explore these and other new innovations to make financial markets as secure as possible.