Combating Identity-Based Cyber Threats in Financial Services
The financial services sector is under siege from increasingly advanced identity-based cyberattacks, aimed at siphoning off vast amounts of money and undermining the trust built over many years.
The Evolving Landscape of Cybercrime
Cybercriminals are continuously developing their tactics, capitalizing on vulnerabilities in identity security within the financial industry. By leveraging large language models and applying cutting-edge adversarial AI methods, these malicious actors—from individual hackers to organized crime groups and even state-sponsored entities—are honing in on this lucrative market.
Rate Companies’ Strategic Countermeasures Against AI Threats
Synthetic identity fraud alone has cost financial institutions over $3.1 billion, a staggering increase of 14.2% compared to last year. Moreover, the prevalence of deepfake technology has surged by 3000% and is projected to climb by an additional 50-60% in 2024. Techniques like smishing (SMS phishing), multi-factor authentication fatigue, and impersonation through deepfakes have become alarmingly typical.
As one of the top retail mortgage lenders in America, Rate Companies manages billions of sensitive transactions daily—making it a prime target for cyber threats.
Katherine Mowen, Senior Vice President of Information Security at Rate Companies, shared insights during a recent discussion with VentureBeat about how they are incorporating AI throughout their operational framework with an emphasis on safeguarding the identities of customers, employees, and partners.
Aggressive Defense Strategies Using AI
“Given our line of work, we encounter some of the most sophisticated cyber threats imaginable,” Mowen explained. “As we observed breaches affecting other companies within our sector, it became imperative for us to fortify our defenses against similar attacks.” She further emphasized that their approach includes deploying artificial intelligence as both a defense mechanism and an offense against evolving threats.
Mowen highlighted that fortifying customer identities—and securing transactions worth billions annually—requires intricate threat modeling powered by AI. She noted that despite having superior endpoint protections in place: “Even top-notch defenses can’t help if attackers manage to steal user credentials.” This insight led Rate Companies to enhance its anomaly detection capabilities related to identity verification while integrating proactive threat response systems into its operations.
This strategy cultivates a zero-trust mentality across all facets of their organization by anchoring decisions around continuous verification processes when validating identities—a fundamental principle underlying zero trust methodologies.
Pioneering Rapid Detection Through Advanced Frameworks
Implementing a “never trust; always verify” philosophy allows Rate Companies to monitor every transaction closely using real-time data analysis while defining minimal privileges for access—a vital aspect underpinning robust zero-trust architecture. They understood that reaction times needed acceleration as criminal behavior grows more swift; currently averaging just over one hour before digital crime breaks out leads organizations like theirs towards rapid intervention models dubbed “1-10-60”: detecting threats within one minute; assessing them within ten minutes; containing them swiftly thereafter within sixty minutes.
Valuable Insights from Rate’s Experience with Cybersecurity Models
- Adequate Monitoring is Fundamental:
Rate’s information security division acknowledged rising incidents involving complex identity-related attacks aimed at loan officers who were working remotely. After assessing multiple solutions available on the market priced competitively based upon bundled features/options—they ultimately chose CrowdStrike’s Falcon Identity Protection service due largely because it delivered both visibility into vulnerabilities as well as control mechanisms required for comprehensive protection measures against sophisticated infiltrations as Mowen stated: “Falcon Identity Protection provided us effective oversight towards defending ourselves.” - Noisy Alerts Hinder Response:
The prior vendor had created excessive noise rather than actionable alerts – resulting frequently burdening personnel during critical hours such as nighttime shifts according Markwen observations: Now she notes ”When receiving notifications after hours via pages—it almost exclusively flags legitimate issues.” To rectify this challenge they integrated CrowdStrike’s Falcon Complete Next-Gen Managed Detection & Response capabilities along with leveraging tightly knit log management historically lacking streamlining efforts achieved through older SIEM alternatives which were ultimately cumbersome per firm specifics . - Sustainable Evolutions Lead Resilience:
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Create Scalable Defense Structures Moving Forward
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