The Fintech sector is witnessing an unprecedented proliferation of online payment gateways. This is because many businesses are leveraging the swift mechanisms of these solutions to scale. However, many of these fintech solutions sacrifice safety for speed, thus providing cybercriminals with an avenue to exploit the lapses in the payment network. Macropay reviews the methods to safeguard customers’ data and prevent cybersecurity threats.
Cybersecurity and the Online Payment Experience
Cybersecurity is important because of the many dangers associated with online payments. A few ways cybercriminals attack customers are through phishing, data breaches of payment gateways, orchestrated scams, ransomware, sale of customer data to third parties by fraudulent merchants, and through other malicious software programmed to steal data.
However, with most payment systems, regulations have been put in place to strengthen security. Some of the steps put in place to check online scams and ensure that customers have a seamless payment experience include:
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS)
This is a regulatory standard that credit card companies must adhere to secure customers’ data. Most customers trust certain online payment gateways due to the compliance clause in their privacy policies. These policies protect the customer’s information by their compliance with these standards such as the activation of the multi-factor authentication.
Running Software Update
Innovations in the fintech space are accelerating and new solutions to old problems. Keeping software up to date prevents bugs and malware that facilitates data breaches. It also impedes cybercriminals from accessing customers’ data and initiating fraudulent transactions.
The Use of Tokens and Multifactor OTPs
In a process called tokenization, technology is leveraged to generate some characters that replace sensitive data, thereby preventing fraudsters from gaining access to said data. This token is what then authenticates the transaction. Similar innovation is applicable in the generation of one-time passwords (OTPs). These passwords are valid only for a few seconds or minutes.
Passwords
Passwords can be used to protect cards and e-wallets from unauthorised transactions. However, these passwords can be the customer’s undoing especially if they are saved on a device or an online payment gateway. Fraudsters can gain access to these passwords if saved online. Businesses and payment gateways can help increase password security by only allowing difficult passwords and mandating regular passwords updates.
Secure and Separate Storage Systems
In cases where card details must be saved, personal verification numbers such as the CVV should be stored separately from other card details. This limits vulnerability to cyber-attacks.
Many of these breaches in cybersecurity during business transactions are avoidable. Merchants must be proactive when it comes to customer data storage, especially when it comes to payment data.
Macropay Review: Trust a Partner
Macropay thrives in this area by giving merchants access to secure payment methods that have incorporated the best of technologies into its system to protect customers’ data from cybercriminals. Contact Macropay now to gain access to secure payment methods and valuable advisory services.
