Visa will alert banks to cyber threats before an attack occurs

Visa has announced the launch of a new platform, the Visa Threat Intelligence Platform (VTIP), which is designed to help financial institutions identify cyber threats and prevent fraud.

The new solution combines cyber threat data with payment analytics, enabling banks and other financial organisations to detect potential attacks earlier and take action before they result in financial losses.

Visa notes that many cases of fraud begin long before an illegal transaction takes place — with data breaches, the theft of payment details or the exploitation of system vulnerabilities. Compromised data can be circulated amongst cybercriminals and used to carry out fraudulent transactions.

The VTIP platform is built on Visa’s cyber security technologies, which the company uses to secure its own global payment network. According to the company, Visa blocks around 90 million cyber attacks and 11 million phishing emails every month across more than 200 countries worldwide.

The new platform has been developed specifically for the financial sector and helps security, risk management and anti-fraud departments analyse threats related to payment infrastructure.

VTIP’s capabilities include: identifying signs of system compromise and malware; detecting vulnerabilities that may pose a risk to organisations; protecting against brand counterfeiting and impersonation attempts; monitoring threats against staff and executives;
detecting compromised payment data circulating on the dark web.

Visa believes that combining information on cyberattacks and fraud risks will enable financial organisations to respond more quickly to threats and reduce the likelihood of losses.
The company also reported that over the past five years it has invested more than $13 billion in developing digital payment security technologies.

“Cyberattacks are becoming increasingly targeted, and their early detection is becoming more difficult. By combining cyber threat data with payment analytics, VTIP will help financial institutions gain a more comprehensive understanding and mitigate risks before they escalate into fraud”, — said Walter Lironi, Visa’s Senior Vice President for Value-Added Services in the CEMEA region.