How to protect consumer data and ensure data security for banks with JSCAPE

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. 

In the banking and financial industry, information security isn’t just a corporate policy or regulatory requirement. It can also be your key differentiator. Many customers in the financial industry value trustworthiness more than almost any other attribute. If you can demonstrate a superior ability to protect customer data, both existing and potential customers will entrust you with not just their data, but also their financial transactions and long-term investments. 

That being said, in today's complex banking environment, maintaining customer trust through robust data security presents numerous technical and operational challenges.  

Key challenges in banking data security

Due to their possession of high-value data, reliance on technology and critical role in the financial sector, banks are constantly exposed to cybersecurity risks. Cybercriminals will always have the incentive, means and opportunity to target banking institutions, making data security initiatives difficult. 

Possession of high-value data

Whenever you handle financial data, personal data or any sensitive information that cybercriminals can monetize, you automatically become a prime target for data breaches. For example, identity theft operators who use stolen personal data to commit fraud will want to get hold of your bank’s stockpile of customer information. 

Reliance on technology

Banks increasingly depend on advanced technologies to deliver seamless customer experiences, streamline operations and manage massive volumes of financial transactions. Unfortunately, these technologies are often accompanied by vulnerabilities that expand your attack surface and leave you open to a wide range of cyberattacks. 

Critical role in the financial sector

Banks play a critical role in the financial ecosystem. Any disruptions to your banking operations can impact other organizations that transact directly or indirectly with you. Threat actors can take advantage of this interdependence by holding your bank hostage through disruptive cyber attacks, such as ransomware infections or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and then demanding ransom. Once your operations are crippled, it would be hard not to pay up. 

These factors complicate risk management and other cybersecurity initiatives for protecting data. You can reduce that complexity by using JSCAPE by Redwood. 

What is JSCAPE?

JSCAPE is a managed file transfer solution that you can use as an on-premises server application or a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for enabling and managing all banking-related file transfers. It enables you to set up, manage and monitor secure, automated file transfer workflows from a single pane of glass. 

And, because JSCAPE comes with a robust low-code/no-code automated workflow builder, you can automate practically any file transfer task without writing a single line of code. In addition to automation and data security functionality, which we’ll cover in the next section, JSCAPE also has built-in high availability (HA) and scalability features that allow you to support high-volume data transfers without compromising performance. 

As a trusted solution in the banking industry, JSCAPE delivers the robust security and reliability needed to support everything from complex institutional transfers to daily online banking operations. 

How JSCAPE ensures data protection in banks and other financial institutions

JSCAPE provides an extensive array of features to ensure data protection and reduce security risks. Some of those features include the following:

• Data-in-motion encryption: Ensures data confidentiality when you transfer files across networks.
• Data-at-rest encryption: Preserves the confidentiality of your stored data even if hackers manage to compromise your storage systems.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Detects sensitive data, such as bank account, credit card and social security numbers, and protects them from cyber threats. 
• Multi-factor authentication: Prevents hackers from gaining unauthorized access even if they steal user passwords through phishing, credential stuffing and other cyber attacks.
• Malware protection: Protects files and systems from ransomware, viruses and other types of malware.
• Access controls: Limits data access on a need-to-know basis. 
• Detailed logging and reporting: Logs every file transfer action and event, and makes them available for incident response, forensic analysis, risk assessment and audit purposes.
• Reverse proxy: Works with your corporate firewall to restrict inbound access to your internal network.

Traditional file transfer software, such as FTP servers or SFTP servers, don’t have these capabilities built-in. Thus, in order to secure your data, you would have to deploy additional security solutions and integrate them with your file transfer environment. This approach introduces additional complexity, cost and administrative overhead.  

Operational, administrative and technical benefits of using JSCAPE 

In addition to cybersecurity benefits, JSCAPE offers operational, administrative and technical benefits as well. 

Operational benefits

• Streamlined business processes: Many banking processes rely on data transfers. So, when you automate these transfers and enable real-time exchanges, dependent processes can complete much faster and more efficiently. 

• 24/7/365 availability: Payroll processes, clearing and settlements, end-of-day (EOD) reconciliations, cross-border fund settlements and other batch processes are normally performed after office hours. JSCAPE’s HA capabilities help ensure that all these processes complete without any disruptions.

• Global accessibility: Banks with global operations may require file transfer servers to be hosted in certain geographical locations for regulatory compliance or performance optimization purposes. JSCAPE MFT Server’s flexible deployment options allow you to host it on any hosting or cloud service provider. You can also use JSCAPE SaaS’ inherent global reach for this purpose. 

• Scalability: Sudden surges in transaction volumes during peak hours, holidays or major events require file transfer solutions that can scale with demand. JSCAPE MFT Server’s HA clusters or JSCAPE SaaS’ built-in scalability capability helps you meet this need. 

Administrative benefits

• Centralized management: With JSCAPE, you can manage all your file transfer workflows anytime, anywhere, from the web-based MFT Server Manager. This unified administrative interface eliminates the need to shift between multiple tools and platforms. 
• Security policy enforcement: JSCAPE automates policy enforcement for controls involving password usage, login attempts, data-in-transit encryption and others. This means your IT admins won’t have to be burdened by these tasks.  
• Compliance simplification: JSCAPE’s extensive array of security features allow you to comply with numerous requirements for regulations such as: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), all through a single solution. 

Technical benefits

• Low-code/no-code automation: JSCAPE dramatically simplifies the process of building automated workflows, which used to be done through complicated scripts. 

• Seamless integration: JSCAPE comes with a robust application programming interface (API) and a wide selection of connectors, allowing you to easily integrate with various applications and cloud-based services. 

• Support for hybrid environments: JSCAPE supports a wide range of on-premises and cloud-based deployments, which enables you to set up hybrid infrastructures with ease. 

All these benefits make a compelling case for implementing JSCAPE in your banking operations. Here are some of the steps you can take to implement it. 

Steps to implement JSCAPE in financial services and banking operations

When implementing JSCAPE in banking and financial services, taking  a structured approach to ensure seamless integration with existing processes and compliance with regulatory standards. 

• Assess business and security requirements

Identify key use cases. Determine your specific processes that require managed file transfer (e.g., interbank settlements, customer file exchanges, compliance reporting, EOD batch proccesses and so on). Ensure alignment with regulations that govern your organization. In addition, you must also consider not just current, but also future file transfer volume as well as peak transaction periods. 

• Select your deployment model

Choose between on-premises or cloud-based SaaS deployments based on your bank’s infrastructure, regulatory requirements and geographical operations. If you prefer a hybrid environment to balance control and flexibility, you can leverage JSCAPE’s built-in support for mixed deployment models. 

• Configure core settings and policies

Once your JSCAPE deployment is up and running in a staging or test environment, configure the secure file transfer protocols you need to exchange data with other organizations. This may include:

• Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), 
• File Transfer Protocol over SSL/TLS (FTPS), 
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), 
• Applicability Statement 2 (AS2),
• and others. 

It’s also at this stage where you set up JSCAPE’s security measures. For instance, you would typically define user roles and access controls, set up DLP and configure password policies. 

• Integrate and automate

Connect JSCAPE with the applications and cloud-based services involved in your file transfer processes. You can use either JSCAPE’s API or built-in connectors for this purpose. At the same time, you can also start setting up automated file transfer workflows using JSCAPE’s low-code/no-code automated workflow builder. 

• Test your file transfer environment

Conduct end-to-end testing of workflows. Check for accuracy and reliability. Simulate high-traffic scenarios to evaluate potential performance during peak periods. You can use JSCAPE MFT Monitor for this purpose. 

• Train users and administrators

Provide trainings and workshops for IT administrators who will be in charge of managing your MFT environment. Come up with a response plan for potential issues, such as failed transfers, system downtime or security incidents, and orient your admins on it. You must also train end-users on secure file transfer and file sharing best practices. 

• Monitor and optimize processes

Once the MFT infrastructure has been fully deployed in your production environment, use JSCAPE’s logging and reporting tools to monitor system performance, detect anomalies and generate audit reports. Regularly review workflows and security policies to identify areas for optimization, automation opportunities and security gaps. Leverage JSCAPE’s scalability features to handle growth in transaction volumes or adapt to changing business needs. 

Conclusion

Considering the technical, regulatory and operational complexities in banking file transfers, ensuring data security can be quite a challenge. JSCAPE eliminates many of those complexities with an all-in-one secure and automated file transfer solution. Don’t just take our word for it, though — request a quick demo to see for yourself.