Banking institutions, including commercial, retail and investment banks, frequently exchange files with various trading partners, which typically include customers, clearinghouses, corporate clients, other financial institutions, regulatory authorities and other organizations. Many of these files are crucial to time-sensitive business processes. Most also contain sensitive information, making them subject to governance and data privacy/protection laws and regulations, such as:

Banks store, process and transfer vast amounts of sensitive consumer data. This may include financial information, credit card data, personally identifiable information (PII), loan details and transaction data. Since these types of sensitive data are critical to business processes or subject to regulatory compliance mandates, they need to be protected. 

This year, the stakes for regulatory compliance are higher than ever. Organizations face an increasingly complex landscape of data protection and privacy regulations, many of which impose strict requirements on how you move, process and store sensitive data during file transfers. Secure file transfers are no longer just a best practice — they are a compliance imperative. 

Advanced secure file transfer solutions, like managed file transfer (MFT) servers, are no doubt more expensive than run-of-the-mill file transfer software. In fact, you can get a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server or even a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) server for free. Many operating systems already have SFTP servers built-in, so they’re readily available at no additional cost. 

File transfer environments, with their many moving parts and frequent handling of sensitive data, require multiple layers of security. Here are 11 proven security tactics we’ve outlined for quick consumption. Feel free to go over them while on the go. 

Zero-day exploits are currently one of the most prevalent cyber attacks impacting file transfer solutions. We won’t go into specifics, but a recent file-transfer-related data breach that impacted almost a million individual records was caused by a zero-day exploit. 

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) file transfers are two of the most user-friendly methods for carrying out user-initiated file uploads and downloads. Users only need a web browser like Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge or Safari to perform these actions. In a previous tutorial, we outlined the steps for setting up an HTTP file transfer. So, in this post, we’ll focus more on HTTPS.  

Scheduled file transfers offer significant operational, strategic and technical benefits. They allow your IT staff to save time and improve productivity. They also help ensure that data transfers for time-sensitive business processes are consistently carried out on time. Lastly, they enable you to maximize computing resources and network bandwidth when you schedule the transfers to run after office hours. 

JSCAPE by Redwood wraps up the year with several security updates, plus enhancements to our SaaS environment, to get your 2025 started off safe. Best of all, we’re excited to announce the design phase for a full UI refresh of JSCAPE is now underway! Stay secure and start strong in 2025 with JSCAPE Version 2024.4.