Security Analyst – Jeff Soehner CISSP, GXPN,GPYC,GMOB,GCIH

The world is clearly a better place now that we carry computers in our back pocket but we need an increase in security measures for payment transactions and therefore we will require an increase in regulation, such as the PSD2 from European Commission.

The Payment Services Directive mandates compliance by September 2019 and aims to regulate banks, payment service providers and electronic payments to include security features to protect consumers across digital channels. The PSD2 legislation will require financial services in the European Union (EU) to contribute to a more integrated, secure, and efficient payments ecosystem.

The PSD2 directive requires financial institutions to:

• Provide/Implement a monitoring mechanism in their apps to detect/report signs of malware.

• Provide security measures in their app to mitigate risk for the user device.

• Ensure consumers have a secure environment to execute their financial transactions

In Article 2 and Article 9 of the directive, PSD2 highlights Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and Safe Execution Environment (SEE), which requires de-risking across various threat vectors impacting mobile apps.

These include detecting compromised devices (eg: jailbroken or rooted), unsafe environments (such as a fake or malicious wi-fi), as well as malware and vulnerabilities within the application execution environment. PSD2 also includes RTS (Regulatory Technical Standards), which are regulatory requirements set by the European Banking Authority (EBA) to ensure that payments across the EU are secure, fair & efficient.

To meet these requirements, financial institutions should add strong security capabilities like binary protections to their mobile apps. These controls are designed to protect against known and unknown threats on users’ devices.

Mobile banking apps should also be able to detect when they are installed on risky devices and consider restricting access to high value banking services until those risks have been remediated.