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Financial Institutions Face New Challenges in Protecting Customer Data

In an effort to safeguard customer data, financial institutions are facing increasingly stringent regulations and guidelines. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have set new standards for protecting personal information, while the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) provides additional requirements for securing sensitive cardholder data.

Regulatory Requirements

The CCPA gives consumers more control over their personal information by granting them certain rights, including:

  • The right to know what information is collected and shared
  • The right to delete personal information
  • The right to opt-out of the sale of personal information

The GDPR, considered one of the strongest data protection laws in the world, provides individuals with greater protection and rights regarding their data.

Financial Regulations

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) requires financial institutions to maintain the confidentiality and security of customer data, while the PCI DSS provides specific guidelines for securing sensitive cardholder data. Financial institutions must:

  • Install and maintain firewalls
  • Use encryption to protect data both in storage and in transit
  • Implement intrusion detection systems

Log Collection and Analysis

GLBA requires all security event information to be logged and reviewed, with the FFIEC providing guidelines for identifying specific log sources and analyzing them for potentially threatening network activity. PCI DSS also mandates:

  • Continuous tracking and monitoring of access to network resources and payment data

Required Policies and Processes

Financial institutions must establish and uphold policies for:

  • Incident reporting and response
  • Annual security awareness training for staff who process or store GLBA data
  • Timely patching for security updates
  • Up-to-date security controls like firewalls

Vendor Management

When engaging third-party vendors, financial institutions must:

  • Conduct robust due diligence to ensure they meet the institution’s security standards
  • Ongoing monitoring of vendor relationships to detect potential weaknesses in their IT security program

Centralizing Compliance Management

To effectively comply with these regulations and guidelines, financial institutions must be able to:

  • Anticipate and respond to a broad range of threats
  • Centralize compliance management by enlisting the help of third-party security operations experts or implementing a security operations platform to streamline threat detection and response

Actionable Steps

To enhance security at your organization, download our comprehensive Financial Industry Cybersecurity Checklist. With this checklist, you’ll gain actionable steps to take in protecting customer data and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.