Ongoing Threats to Emerging Financial Entities

Abstract

In the twenty-first century the pace of technological advancement shows no signs of stopping. Old technologies are being discarded as obsolete or are transformed in ways that nobody could have foreseen even a half-decade ago. Along with these radical changes come vulnerabilities and threats to infrastructure, including informational and financial which must be considered and protected. This is not to say that basic security measures must continue to be neglected in favor of rapid development and deployment to provide a Minimum Viable Product to customers; basic security protocols become all the more important under these circumstances. Improving faster are attacks against the new infrastructure; technique and technology tend to change along generally accepted sets of rules while attackers follow no rules or guidelines. This fundamental asymmetry leaves defenders at a distinct advantage in several ways, including ethical concerns (“There are some lines we will not cross” versus “By any means necessary”), monetary considerations (“Return on investment” versus “The resources aren’t ours to begin with, so who cares”) and pragmatism (“We exist to make money to improve shareholder value” versus “Because it’s there”). That said, measurable, repeatable, and effective countermeasures exist which can be deployed on an enterprise-wide basis to help level the playing field by deterring attackers. This paper will discuss these threats along with active and passive countermeasures for same.