FINSEC

The infrastructures of the financial sector are nowadays more critical, sophisticated and interconnected than ever before, which makes them increasingly vulnerable to security attacks. Despite increased security, most security measures remain fragmented and static i.e. inappropriate for confronting sophisticated and asymmetric attacks. FINSEC is a joint effort of prominent stakeholders in the financial sector and global leaders in physical & IT security, towards introducing a novel standards-based reference architecture (RA) for integrated (cyber & physical) security. The RA will enable timely preparation against attacks, while at the same time facilitating stakeholders’ collaboration for risk assessment/mitigation in the financial supply chain, as a means of confronting complex threats and their cascading effects. FINSEC will provide a mature implementation of the RA, based on the enhancement and integration of novel solutions of the partners (eg., Anomaly Detection, AI CCTV Analytics, Risk Assessment Engines, Collaborative Risk Analysis & Management, Compliance), which will be bundled in a toolbox. The RA implementation and the toolbox will be validated through realistic pilots involving stakeholders in the identification, assessment and mitigation of threats. The five pilots involve high-impact scenarios including SWIFT network protection, buildings and ATM networks security, peer-to-peer payments network protection, risk assessment for insurance purposes and securing financial SMEs. The pilots will engage >=500 security & finance experts, while providing a representative coverage of the financial services industry (ie. banking, capital management, insurance, card & P2P payments), which is a sound basis for FINSEC’s broader impact. Towards maximum impact, FINSEC will establish an ecosystem of security solutions for the financial sector, which will be supported by the partners’ dense network of sales, marketing, standardization and regulation channels worldwide.