In the current age where information technology has penetrated in almost every area of our lives, both personal and professional has huge impact of Information technology, in other words our live has been completely dependent on technology. Be it organizational or personal, the amount of data collected and processed by big-companies and start -ups is alarming. Human beings have become so much dependent on technology, be it hardware or software, holdable to wearables to insertable, technology is all but inseparable.

Be it office or daily household tasks, technology has invaded in every sector and make the work easier and more efficient to perform., however, all the technology gadgets and services have one thing in common, that is data processing. In order to process the data like PII(Personally Identifiable Information),PHI Protected health information about individuals, and critical financial, scientific, confidential  data of organizations and countries is  extremely lucrative  to competitors and cybercriminals, ranging  hackers to , script kiddies, the wannabes, elites, activists, crackers, and phreakers to punks ciphers

For an example you are start-up organization providing information technology services to any government or any other big organization which is processing critical data, then a vulnerability in your system can be a potential risk which could lead to data breach of your client. As per recent trends, at least one new zero-day vulnerability was found each week. As zero-day vulnerabilities are discovered, they just serve as a tool for cybercriminals/hackers to intensify attacks. Hence by enabling proactive measures such as incident management or cyber crisis management plan can be an effective way to limit or even prevent the propagation of a cyber security attack.

IMPACTS OF CYBER SECURITY BREACHES IN START-UPS

Cybersecurity breaches impacts   organizations and companies in different ways. Many of which cause serious damage to the organizations and start-ups, if not permanent. Some effects of cyber breaches are:

• Organizations leads to financial losses: An intense cyber security breach can damage critical servers and hardware which could lead to financial loss. In addition to it an organisation which is not capable to secure its information assets and prone to frequent cyber security attacks is liable for penalties imposed by client or government.
• Organizations do experience loss of confidential data. This is often the major consequence of a cybersecurity attack. Confidential Data, which could range from credit card numbers, Aadhar number, PAN number, phone numbers, social security numbers, health records, right up to software design, code, military confidential or classified information, medical formulas could be stolen.
• Loss in Reputation and value degradation in the business market have often been cited as a significant concern. Trust and value built from customers (service providers) to companies(clients) after a mishandled cybersecurity attack starts discrediting and is brought into question, especially when the company fails to respond promptly to a cybersecurity attack.
• Competitiveness between firms and organizations becomes compromised. This can cause disaster, from which small to medium organizations or start-ups might never recover.

 Cyber security breaches or incidents can sustain by opting different kind of strategies. Few of them is setting up preventive measures to avoid a potential attack, and the other being how to respond when a breach or attack occurs as a corrective measure in case of any Zero-day attack. However, both the methodologies require intense monitoring of the information systems.

STEPS TO AVOID A POTENTIAL CYBERSECURITY ATTACK

Cyber security attacks are of various kinds and natures, and there is an enormous number of resources out there stating how to prepare for the inevitability of a cyber-attack. Cyber risk can come from various points like open ports, unattended laptops, desktops, improper patch management etc and this activity requires involvement of top to lowest level of employees the organisation. There is no perfect methodology or solution available to handle cyber security incidents or attacks in any organisation, however the impact can be minimised if handled properly. Below are the points to strengthen cyber security:

• Perform Cyber Security Risk Assessment: Perform an intensive risk assessment for your business and identify all the possible weak points which could lead to cyber security attack and find out a risk mitigation plan for each risk, don’t leave any risk unattended
• Employees Training. In any organisation aware employees can be helpful to handle cyber security incidents. Any organisation or start-up should provide adequate training those handling sensitive data.
• Regularly backup sensitive data. Data is the core of every company. Unavailability of data can destabilize, disrupt, and even lead to shut down of start-ups, or organizations. Having data backup at an alternate location online/offline is the key of surviving a cybersecurity breach or incident. Remember, data availability is one of the key components of cybersecurity.
• Employee Screening prior to employment. A proper policy and SOP for employee screening shall be developed and followed with due diligence. Since employees are often the weakest link in a cyber-security plan, all the future employees should be screened to validate their cyber-security skill sets desired for their respective positions in the organisation or start-ups.
• Keep systems updated by regular patch updates. Most of the start -ups and small companies don’t have proper patch management programs for systems and software which could lead to a serious cyber threat because these vulnerabilities can be exploited by cybercriminals to access your systems. Applying timely security patches to software and hardware systems routinely can reduce cyber security threats, as most of the threats exploit known vulnerabilities(weaknesses).
• Adapt Security culture and take cyber threat seriously. As part of the organisation’s culture, cyber-security must be priority by the management. Negligence can lead to unrecoverable cyber-attacks. Management should provide adequate budget for enhancement of cyber-security in the organisation.
• Develop Cyber Crisis Management Plan. Since Cyber incidents comes unannounced organizations and start-ups should identify and classify different cyber -security attack scenarios and generate mitigation plan for it. Table top exercises are helpful to understand the readiness. A contingency plan shall be developed

A well skilled team for handling cyber security in any organisation is very important. Having the Data Privacy Officer (DPO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), and the Chief Information Officer (CIO), etc., with well-defined role are helpful for any organisation

HOW TO RESPOND TO SECURITY BREACHES?

1. Establish an Incident Response Team (IRT).

Create an IRT with skillsets and capable to handle Cyber security incidents. Define roles and responsibilities of each member which may in some cases, take precedence over normal duties. The IRT can be comprised of a variety of departments including Information Technology, Finance Compliance and Human Resources.

Your (IRT)Incident Response Team should include your Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), who will lead the team organisation’s security policy direction. In case of start-up Virtual CISO can be a guide.

2. Identify the type and extent of incident.

A impact matrix for incident should be clearly defined for damage assessment and determine the appropriate response. For example, an incident where a computer virus is easily detected and removed and which has not impacted any external or internal parties can be categorised as low and should not be escalated.

However, an incident which impacts clients and customers should be escalated to the IRT.

3. Escalate incidents as necessary.

Employees are the first one to observe the cyber security incidents, any kind of incidents including abnormal system behaviour, phishing mails, fraud mails etc shall be immediately escalated to IRT so that timely corrective action can be taken.to mitigate suspicious vulnerabilities and avoid unexpected downtime.

4. Notify affected parties, government bodies and outside organizations.

Identify and assign responsibility to one member of the IRT managing communication to affected parties (e.g.  government bodies, investors, third party vendors, etc.). Depending on the severity of the incident, the IRT member should inform the affected parties and law enforcement agencies

5. Gather and analyse evidence.

IRT is responsible for identifying, gathering and analysing both physical and electronic evidence as part of the investigation. These evidences shall be kept securely as a part of artefacts. Lesson learnt should be documented for future.

6. Mitigate risk and exposure.

Technical members of the IRT shall be responsible for monitoring the situation and ensuring any effects or damage created as a result of the incident are appropriately repaired and measures are taken to minimize future occurrences.

Since cyber security is the responsibility of everybody in the organisation the necessary disciplinary action shall be defined for the guilty. An adequate amount of penalty or action shall act as a deterrence and helpful in reducing the cyber-security incidents.

Keywords: Cyber-Security, Information Security, Cyber-Security incidents, CISO, Virtual-CISO, hacking, cybercriminal, start-ups,incident-response

]]> https://www.cyberlaws.org/cyber-security-compliance-for-startups/ Sun, 21 Feb 2021 17:27:31 +0000 http://www.cyberlaws.org/?p=622 CYBER SECURITY COMPLIANCE FOR START-UPS

Start-ups are integral to  economic success of any country, generating  millions new jobs in recent years and experiencing significant market growth as business owners tap new technologies to increase brand reach and impact. With the recently developed industry standards and regulatory requirements influencing all industries, cyber security compliance becomes a mandate for business success.

In this digital era, as the severity and number of cyber-attacks increases, industry standards organizations and governments seek to enforce cyber security by establishing mandatory compliance requirements. However, compliance requirements often lag behind cyber security risk. Therefore, to prepare for dynamic compliance requirements, businesses need to have a risk based approach which includes addressing and mitigating risk of cyber security so that they can stay ahead of the evolving requirements.

Think Big while Starting Small

Most of the time start-ups view their IT as inherently safe —there is a common thought, after all, why would hackers bother with smaller businesses when large-scale operations handle huge volumes of valuable data? Cyber security for start-ups may also take a back seat because almost all of mission-critical tasks that require owners’ attention.

Here’s the hard truth: Start-ups are often in the line of fire for digital compromise precisely because they don’t have built-in cyber security controls or well-articulated InfoSec policies.

Since there’s a lower chance of attacks being detected, identified and mitigated, attacker/hackers looking to test new threat vectors or grab consumer data may target start-ups

 Clearly, start-ups should not ignore risk pertaining to Cyber security. Few of the key activities includes

Compliance : From privacy regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR to start-up PCI compliance, our experts ensure your data handling and storage processes meet evolving expectations.

Internal Audits : Periodic internal audits are helpful in identifying critical gaps between the actual status and desired compliance status.

Risk Assessments :Regulatory bodies wanted to ensure that controls and measures taken by organisation are sufficient and reasonable to your organization, customers, and partners. There are many frameworks available in the market, organisation need to choose the right one as per their requirements and then identify acceptable risk. If possible more than one framework can be used to identify and compare the risks. Organisation shall identify and implement a balanced security strategy factoring in compliance and safeguards based on their specific business and objectives.

Security management : Proper security management services help streamline IT environment and protect business purpose. It provides a holistic view to the management about cyber security compliance.

Incident Response and remediation : When a breach does occur, organisations need to address the attack immediately, contain it, and remediate the threat. A properly trained, expert incident response team to stop, fix, and an ongoing incident response process and plan to keep data secure.

Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration testing : Not all vulnerabilities are obvious. Vulnerability assessments and penetration testing helps find and secure potential failure points.

Third Party Risk Management (TPRM)/Vendor Risk Management : Vendors or service providers are the integral part of most of the start-up businesses. Organisations need to ensure third-party partners are aligned with your organization’s risk controls. Organisations shall ensure that all the vendors are adhering all the desired requirements pertaining to cyber security compliance.

What are the data breach risks?

Data breaches has become very frequent irrespective of the organisations size.

The recent trends indicate that cyber criminals target small businesses which does not have adequate security to gain unauthorized access to data that they can sell on the dark web. Hacking and social engineering attacks focus on exploiting vulnerabilities in servers, systems, networks, software, and people to gain entry.

Many small businesses currently lack the necessary resources required to defend against these attacks, which increases the probability that hackers will continue to target them.

Below are the recent data breach trends

• One fourth of data breaches involved small businesses.
• Many of breaches include social engineering by exploiting lack of awareness of cyber security among employees.
• Maximum of breaches were financially motivated
• Most of the breaches were perpetrated by outsiders and script kiddies.
• Almost more than one fourth of breaches still take months or more to discover

What is cybersecurity compliance and why it is necessary?

Compliance, in general is the act of being aligned with guidelines, rules, regulations and legislation. In cybersecurity, compliance is a program that establishes risk-based controls to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and ensure availability of information stored, processed, or transferred.

Cyber security compliance is not a stand-alone compliance many a times, it is based on multiple standards or regulations to be adhered by any industry. Sometimes different standards can create uncertainty and surplus work for organizations using a checklist-based approach

For example, an e-commerce organisation needs to meet PCI DSS(Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards) if accepts payments through POS(Point-of Service) device, they also require to adhere HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) for their employees health information.If this organisation serves European customers then must be complaint with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

What Data is subject to cybersecurity compliance? 

Cybersecurity and data protection laws and regulations primarily focus on the protection of sensitive data, such as

Financial Informatione.g. credit card numbers, card pin numbers, bank account number etc.

PersonallyIdentifiable Information (PII)e.g.First and last name,address,date of birthetc.

Protected Health Information (PHI)e.g. Medical history, records of admissions, prescription records etc.

Other sensitive datathat may be subject to state, regional, or industry regulations includes:

• IP addresses
• Email addresses, usernames, and passwords
• Personal email contents
• Personal messages
• Authenticators, including biometrics such as fingerprints, voiceprints, and facial recognition data
• Marital status
• Race
• Religion

Step by Step Cybersecurity Compliance Program

€Creation of a Compliance Team

For every business irrespective of size, a compliance team is compulsory. Since organizations mainly start-ups are continue to move their business-critical operations to the cloud, there is a need for an interdepartmental workflow and communication across business and IT departments.

Define the Scope

Identify and define the clear scope which includes business processes, information systems, legal requirements, contractual requirements, etc.

€Identify and Establish a Risk Management Process

RISK IDENTIFICATION

Identify all information assets and information processing systems, networks, servers, and data that they access.

 RISK ASSESSMENT

Review the risk level of each data type. Identify where high-risk information is stored, transmitted, and collected and rate the risk of those locations accordingly.

ANALYZE RISK

After assessing risk, you need to analyze risk. Traditionally, organizations use the following formula:

Risk = (Likelihood x Impact)

SET RISK ACCEPTANCE /TOLERANCE LEVEL

After analyzing the risk, you need to determine whether to transfer, treat, accept, or reduce the risk.

Implement Controls

Once the risk is identified treat the risk based on your risk tolerance, you need to determine how to mitigate or transfer risk. Controls can include:

• VPNs
• Access Management
• Firewalls
• Employee training
• Encryption
• Password policies
• Network security
• Third Party/Vendor risk management program

Create Policies

Document Policies and procedures for your compliance activities and controls. These policies acts as the foundation for any internal or external audits.

Continuously Monitor, Respond, and Improve

Continuous monitoring helps in identify new gaps in the cybersecurity compliance program and hence the weaknesses of the information systems and processes can be reduced to strengthen the security. Organizations need to regularly update all the systems in order to avoid any kind of data breach.

Since cyber security is an innovative method, where cyber criminals always try to find out new vulnerabilities in the systems and exploit it.These new vulnerabilities lead to Zero Day attack. Organisations need to monitor their networks and processes in order to identify any suspicious behavior and content it immediately. Internal audits and penetration testing are most effective ways of internal audits.

What are the Benefits of cybersecurity compliance?

There are lots of benefits:

€Enables you to protect your company’s reputation,

It maintain consumer trust, and build customer loyalty by ensuring  customer’s sensitive information is safe and secure

It reduces the risk of a data breach, hence the associated response and recovery costs.

It saves organisations from the less-quantifiable costs of a breach such as reputation damage, business interruption, and loss of business.

Enhance the trust of customers and regulatory bodies in the organisation

€Implementing the appropriate safeguards and security measures to protect sensitive customer and employee information strengthen company’s security posture.

€ It helps to protect intellectual property such as trade secrets, software code, product specifications, and other information that gives your company a competitive advantage.

Other Links :

CYBER SECURITY CHALLENGES FACED BY FINTECH START-UPS

During the current era, both big companies and small start-ups, are using Information Technology for ease of doing business, however it makes them vulnerable for Cyber-attacks. So, it becomes necessary for them to use Cyber security professionals e.g. CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) in order to protect information assets. ,It goes without saying  that information security activities in any organization consume more resources than ever before. Cyber criminals (Hackers) are becoming better all the time, and staying ahead of them is getting tougher. However, it’s not just more zero-day attacks by sophisticated criminals; competitors, growth of the organization, elevated infrastructure complexity and new compliance requirements also desire more cyber defence staff, adequate time and right technology to avoid becoming a victim of a cybersecurity breach.

In earlier days security was primarily focused on physical access to facilities and resources, or adding layers of logical controls to protect business application and data. However, security concerns of the present era don’t fit into this old traditional way anymore. Security concerns impact every aspect of an organization’s operations and should be an integral driver of strategic planning, along with all decision for future expansions.

Since cyberattacks have become smarter and more sophisticated at exploiting vulnerabilities, with the availability of many open-source tools it is easier for hackers to launch new attacks every other day. For the organizations and start-ups cyber security shall be a proactive program rather than a reactive which is to be launched at the time of cyber-attack. Thus, information security is an integral part of organizational strategic growth. It is just as important as goodwill, financial turnovers and product quality.

What is Chief Information Security Officer(CISO) and Virtual Chief Information Security Officer(V-CISO) ?

Top management team should be aware of the impact of lack of information security on their organization’s profitability and durability. A shortage of information security in the organization could result in heavy fines for non-compliance, punitive rulings after finding liability or negligence, or a loss of customers and partners after a confidence-shattering breach. There is a big risk of underestimating information security and it is too big to ignore.

In order to address the growing awareness of information security’s importance to strategic planning, many larger organizations and start-ups include a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the executive level. Chief Information Security Officer is the executive who is responsible of Information security and cyber security compliance in the organization.

Many a times companies cannot afford the cost of having own CISO because of the huge salary range. There are situations where the organizations including start-ups need a CISO , but the budget doesn’t allow for a full-time person in that position.

However, there is a cost effective alternative. Organizations specially start-ups that lack the budget for a full time CISO can opt for an outsourced solution: The Virtual CISO, or V-CISO.

A Virtual-CISO is a information and cyber security expert who uses the expertise  of his/her years of industry experience to help organizations and start-ups  by developing and managing the implementation of the organization’s information security program in order to attain various government and non-government compliances. At a high level, V-CISOs help to build the organization’s security strategy, implementation and its management as well.

Organization’s internal security staff may work and report to V-CISO in order to strengthen the information security and cyber security framework and make it more impactful. In addition to this, the V-CISO is usually expected to be able to present the organization’s state of information security to an organization’s board, management team, auditors, or regulators.

Benefits of having a V-CISO

A V-CISO is generally a cybersecurity professional who works part-time basis offering information security services to multiple organizations at a time, working for several throughout any year. This gives organizations a flexibility to hire part-time CISO on requirement basis.

The V-CISO fills several needs through different types of services, including:

• Information Security and Cybersecurity guidance to management executives in order to adhere compliance guidelines
• Information Security architecture guidance
• Incident management including response
• Governance plans
• Cyber Security readiness assessment
• Compliance alignment recommendations (for ISO 27001,RBI Guidelines for banks ,NBFC, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI-DSS, CCPA and may more)
• Remediation prioritization
• Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Plans and DR drills.
• Identification of scope and objective for the information security compliance
• Risk management (risk identification and treatment)
• Vendor risk management
• Coordination of audits by regulators or customers

Why you organization need a Virtual CISO?

If your organization needs more information security compliance -related guidance at the management level, consider whether a V-CISO would be a good potential option. If you are a a start-up and your budget won’t support a CISO, you might need a V-CISO .If any of the below mentioned scenarios  are similar to  your situation, your organization might need a Virtual -CISO.

• If you are start-up and are really unaware whether you’re vulnerable to cyber security breaches: If your organization hasn’t yet assessed its information security risk, you might need a V-CISO to initiate and support that process.
• Your organization has been breached and no one from your team was able to detect the attack: Post-breach investigations and recommendations often lead to organizational leadership remodelling. One of those remodelling includes information security member of the executive suite. If this is the case, you might need a V-CISO.
• If you are a start-up dealing with critical customer data: In this case if you don’t want to hire a full time CISO, you need to have a V-CISO in order to safeguard your information assets and avoid high penalties because of non-compliance of various regulations
• Important or major changes have occurred that could impact security: If your organization is having mergers or acquisition, security risk should be assessed. Any significant outside influences, such as a global pandemic or natural disaster, which could impact business continuity as well all information security. If your organization doesn’t have anyone who can guide during these times and ensure security is not compromised you might need a V-CISO.
• If your organization wanted to share the workload for the existing CISO: Changes to the organization scope or environment, including new regulatory compliance requirements, may increase the demands of a CISO beyond their current capability. If your existing CISO requires helping hand, you might need a V-CISO.

There could be multiple reasons to have a V-CISO for your organization. An experienced V-CISO will provide valuable guidance and customised solutions as per your organizational needs. As well as it will save you from the burden of paying salary of a full-time CISO.

How to find a right V-CISO?

If you are struggling in your day-to-day information security requirements V-CISO would be a beneficial to your organization, and decided to have one. The very next step is how find the right one. A good amount or research and investigation can help you. Online reviews and existing customers feedback can help you to find a good fit, knowledgeable V-CISO for your organization.

The general process for engaging a V-CISO generally flows like this:

• Set up an initial consultation meeting (commonly one hour at no charge)
• The V-CISO delivers a proposal of scope of work including high-level information security readiness, proposed services and costs
• You may accept or reject the proposal, and then moves forward

• If you decide to engage a V-CISO, then negotiate an agreement that meets your requirements. If you need periodic gap and risk assessment and remediate report, make sure that is explicitly mentioned in the agreement deliverables.
• An agreement with a V-CISO can be set up for a hourly, monthly or quarterly basis . Make sure that you are getting the services you are paying for.
• A V-CISO can be an affordable and flexible approach to adding extensive information security experience and wisdom to your management team. If a V-CISO is a good fit, it can help your organization to identify and safeguard the weak links which could lead to aggressive cyberattacks.

#Key words- CISO,Virtual CISO, VCISO,vCISO, ISO 27001,GDPR,RBI, cyber security, information security, compliance, hackers, cyberattacks.

Cyber Security Challenges by Fin tech

cyber Security Challenges Fintech. This era of digitization and digitization, where every segment of businesses is using technology to provide services to customers, banking and financial industry has transformed their services by financial technology- FinTech.

Fin Tech were providing their services in the form of e-wallets, online and mobile payment systems (Paytm,PayPal, Apple Pay), virtual buying of stocks, etc. But the recent times did bring a bunch of new disruptors that will displace traditional e-commerce providers.Such new FinTechstart-ups are offering more efficient services, seamless customer’s experience, and free person-to-person payments.

FinTechs business can increase profitability and enhance a company’s performance while helping them improve customer service. FinTech also provide an opportunity for companies to expand their portfolio online while solving industry issues such as credit card processing, money transfers, or processing a loan.

But everything is not so smooth with Fintech business. There are few cyber security challenges and risk associated with Fintech business, which every FintechStatups shall be aware of.

WHAT IS FIN TECH?

Fin Tech is the abbreviation used for Financial Technology which aims to compete with traditional method of finance. There are many financial institutions consider this term as backend of their business and sometimes regular banking apps are included in this term.

Fintech business includes mobile payments, money transfers, loans, crowd funding, asset management and many other things.

In simple words-FinTechis the implementation of modern technology in traditional financial services and in the management of financial aspects in various companies and business. Anything from the financial mobile apps and new software installed, processing the money transactions and calculating business models.

Risk in Financial Sector:

Even, in general ,every individual and organisation ,  are worried about information and cyber security , conditions in financial sector is more critical  and fin tech business take the issues more seriously. Some of the recent studies shows that banks are investing a large amount of their funds in designing and implementing security to safeguard themselves from cybercriminals

Few more areas of concern includes cloud based technologies, mobile updates and system upgrades. These findings show that cyber security is the most important risk which the Fin Tech companies are facing.

CYBERCRIME AND CYBER SECURITY IN FINTECH LANDSCAPE

As FinTech start-ups and companies continue to disrupt the global financial landscape, a peculiar feature and perhaps their biggest advantage is that they are not held back or burdened by law, regulations, or existing systems. Also, they are more aggressive, more agile, and more willing to explore and make risky choices. But this total dependence on technology and adventurous attitude to aid financial services delivery may also be their greatest weaknesses.

 

FINTECH FIRMS ARE FACING CYBER SECURITY CHALLENGES  IN FOLLOWING AREAS

Application Security

Fin Tech firms mainly relies on applications that can access users’ financial profiles to perform a variety of real-time transactions. Applications are used by multiple persons and, are an increasingly common attack vector, and vulnerable code can be exploited as an entryway into financial networks.

FinTech firms and Banking companies need to ensure that a secure application security strategy such as a virtual private network is in place to protect user data. This should include a web application firewall enabled with current threat intelligence to identify and mitigate known and unknown threats, as well as to detect and patch vulnerabilities

Network and Cloud Security

Like other organisations, many FinTech firms also utilize cloud services to provide consistent, salable performance with lower upfront costs, rather than the traditional network. However the cloud infrastructure shall be secured differently than a data center or traditional network. Banks and FinTech firms must ensure that the same security standards they apply to their networks are applied in the cloud.

Along with detection and prevention, this security must also be dynamically salable and adaptable to ensure that is can grow seamlessly alongside cloud use. Additionally, in order to secure financial data, FinTech firms need to implement aloud access security, along with internal segmentation to improve data visibility while integrating industry security standards.

Inadequate Threat Intelligence

Threat Intelligence is another challenge for Fin Tech firms, an integrated defense needs to be enabled with automated threat intelligence to become a holistic system. As Fin Tech firms and banks enter partnerships, it will be impossible for IT teams to gather and assess all of this threat intelligence promptly manually. Automation, artificial intelligence and Machine learning will be integral to this process.

Cyber criminals are already leveraging automation to make attacks more persistent and effective. Likewise, artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation integrated into network security tools enable the detection and prevention of attacks in real-time, allowing organizations to keep pace with cyber-criminals.

LACK OF ESTABLISHMENT OF BETTER SECURITY PROTOCOLS

This is one of the most significant issues that Fin Tech start-ups firms face is selecting best security mechanism, like security protocols to enhance encryption data. Inadequate security protocols, data is easily exposed, leaving companies vulnerable to attacks.

Tunneling protocols used in VPNs are effective at encrypting Fin Tech data. Some of the best-known tunneling protocols include:

• Internet Protocol
• Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol.
• Layer Two Tunneling Protocol.
• Internet Key Exchange version 2.
• Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol.

These tunneling protocols provide different levels of protection and provide security in different ways. Fin Tech should research and become more familiar with the different types of protocols and how to use them within a virtual private network – this is especially true in a financial environment where cyber threats are imminent and ongoing

ADDRESSING VULNERABILITIES IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS

Integration of multiple systems and technologies leads to multiple cyber vulnerabilities. When two systems that are not designed at the same time by the same developers often pose compatibility issues and challenges in security, given the limitations in technology. Technology Engineers face issues while integrating two different systems, sometimes engineers working on different systems doesn’t even know how the other system works and vice versa, which makes identification of vulnerabilities more difficult.

Cyber criminals like hackers exploit these vulnerabilities to gain access to the system.

Many cyber criminals gain access to applications and networks because of improper configuration during installation. There are other techniques that are often used like spear-phishing, where humans mistakenly open spam emails and download malicious attachments or enter confidential information into fake websites to which they are redirected. So this is important for all Fin tech Startups to  raise awareness of cyber criminal risks and educate the newly banked on digital and financial literacy to teach them best practices to ensure security when engaging in financial transactions online.

LACK OF COMPLIANCE REGULATIONS RELATED TO CYBER SECURITY

Rapid growth in happening fast in Fin Tech firms. Fin Tech start-ups are flexible enough to change and adapt to evolve alongside consumer demands, rapidly.They are flexible and quick partly because there are not the same regulatory rules as traditional financial services for them. However, there are no regulations are controlling the way start-ups conduct their business. This is making the Fin Tech firms vulnerable because, they can sacrifice cyber security in order to capture the market as fast as possible.

Fin Tech Companies are collecting and storing personal information, so they needs to safeguard customer data. Further the challenge of is the way they protect this data. Many of Fin Tech firms have adopted bank-level security measures and fine-tuned them for their digital platforms.

Use of secure applications , regular vulnerability assessments on networks and applications , patching the applications on time, using Secure socket Layer(SSL) encryption while transferring the data is the must for enhancing cyber security. Fintech can opt for ISO 27001:2013 (ISMS) for overall cyber security.

There is need of some strong regulation, which would inspire start-ups to invest some of that venture capital money into their security.  As the Fin Tech industry grows, so will their defense against breaches.

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CYBER SECURITY CHALLENGES FACED BY FINTECH START-UPS

startups are easy targets. Startup world is filled with examples of data theft and how a beautiful idea just came down thrashing. Startups have a very narrow financial funnel and Startups are weaker targets, in case of any cyber attacks they are unable to handle legal implications and die. Most important is Planning, cybersecurity threats in today’s times can not be ignored. Startups are more vulnerable and this will increase day by day.

• Startups are Easy target or more easily vulnerable  – Large organizations already have procedures or have good infra & spending power to mitigate these threats, but small companies or startups are not so lucky. Cyber crime is increasing day by day and these startup’s are easy targets for them. Basic concern is protecting customer data. It’s all about protecting your digital assets, one of the ways is to use tools for Vulnerable Management.

• Tarnish Reputation  – Basically startups have to be more vigilant  about their reputation, only a single incident in news can tarnish their reputation. Startups business are like planes taking off from the runway, it’s very important to be very vigilant while taking off. Once startups have enough customer base or good investments, then it’s easy to handle.

• Dependency upon Third Party API’s – Most of the startups initially take support of third party API’s due to the fact that it’s impossible to develop API from scratch or the business model is not financially viable hence, third party API’s are the only source, using API means dependency and data exchange and we never know how this is taking place. Recommendation is that some legal documentation should be done before going for this arrangements.

• Less Spending upon IT Infra & Technology  – It’s very important that you select the best IT infra and technology solutions, we are living  in an advanced era, although there are many IT infra solutions available these days which offer services on the basis of bandwidth usage, this actually means Pay as you use. Ie: AWS , Google Storage’s etc These tools have actually made life easier because we are getting the same quality which larger setups are getting and are actually paying on the basis of usage, these advantages were actually not available even a few years back.

• Testing & Performance  – Most of the startups ignore this process called “Testing & Performance”. Although it’s a very important department, in case there is a financial crunch, startups can go for freelancers available at low cost and high quality.

• Lack of Legal know how – We all know startups are betting on new ideas or playing on new technology which might disrupt the market, and it’s not possible that a legal journey would be so simple for the company, hence just starting on mere ideas is not the only important. Analyzing the legal aspect would be a very wise decision. It’s recommended to hire a Cyber laws expert before going forward, this will not only help the company get a second opinion.

• Startups are Less Likely to fight back – Most of the startups have very small small financial backbone or narrow funnel for finances, In incidents like data thefts or legal notices, many startups haven’t even planned these financial aspects or we can say they have not planned for this situations, these incidents actually lose focus on the actual technology which they are working and leave the focus on what the actual idea was resulting in shutting down of startups or moving in wrong direction.

• Less due diligence  – Duedelegence for the idea is very important, a startup team should spend more and more time on this, Managing their resources, Technology aspects, research, IPR, demographic, usage, bandwidth, People, taste etc.   There are the most important aspects in understanding businesses. It’s also important to understand the Cyber Laws, although the world is becoming borderless, the internet has no boundaries, but these cyber laws would be acting as borders for different communities. Hence it’s very important for IT startups to design their  software in a way that is easily configurable according to the change in laws. Scalability not only refers to the tech infra, but also refers to how immediately you change your policies and how easily it is configurable in your software.

Recommendation

Get your Idea Patented 

The Most important aspect of an idea is to get that registered, you again need some attorney and get to read some local or national laws just going to get your idea registered. Although it’s difficult and time consuming but people have come up with innovative ideas to get it mark in the history that they thought for the idea first and small small efforts they did in this direction could save them from losing their idea. 

Cyber Risk Analysis 

Cyber Risk Analysis is the best due diligence which you can start initially, this report will basically touch endpoints where cyber risks are involved. Moreover this gives more insights before taking steps.

Before going for full scalability, have a cyber laws lawyer on your panel.

It’s very important, startups need to have cyber security & Legal advisors on their panel, this will help them analyse local laws and understand the legal implications before taking any steps. This will help companies to do due diligence before going further. 

Keep a cyber security plan always ready in case of emergency response.

In case of data breach or cyberattacks, always be ready with Plan B and try to minimize the risk to customers data, because that will be the only way to safeguard, once this risk is mitigated all other risks seem secondary and will automatically be secured. 

Always be in touch with the regulators or authorities regarding any thefts which you think would be in advance addressed to policy makers.

If you think your product is new and is somewhat governance is needed with public authorities or regulators, always get connected via events with the regulators of industry. You never know  whom you need to connect at the time of crisis.

 Before releasing any version of your product always keep your Terms & conditions, and disclaimer updated and enforced.

The most important part is the disclaimer policy, most of the court cases have fought and won or loose on the basis of Terms & Conditions of usage and Disclaimer. It is strongly recommended that always keep your Policies Updates and keep it reviewed with your legal consultant every time. 

Be proactive in addressing issues with your users. 

Let’s assume, your system is attacked in past months, and you want users to change their passwords asap, don’t hesitate to this announcement, It’s a responsible step, we have seen any automobile companies recalling cars for some defective part, it’s similar to that, you are becoming responsible company trying to save your customers and their data.

Hence by becoming a proactive founder dont let your Startups become  Easy target and vulnerable. SAVE YOUR STARTUP

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