How do\u00a0top mortgage tech companies<\/a> guarantee cyber safety for mortgage software in the face of increasing attacks?<\/p>\n This article guides on how to ensure application, data, and network security of digital mortgage services<\/a>. To this end, we prepared a list of effective practices, policies, and the latest mortgage technologies. But we want to start by exploring why cybersecurity is a pressing need for mortgage organizations.<\/p>\n IBM\u2019s 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report<\/a> shows that the financial sector, including mortgage businesses, sustained the second-largest average data breach cost of $5.90 million.<\/p>\n In 2022, Morgan Stanley’s investment management company suffered a severe social engineering attack. Criminals accessed the company’s bank account and stole funds by impersonating a high-ranking manager. A year earlier, hackers breached a server of the company’s partner to obtain their clients’ personal data. The sheer volume of these cybercrimes is devastating, but there is still a lot we can do to protect mortgage businesses and their clients. Advanced cybersecurity practices and software can reduce these risks and improve financial stability thanks to benefits like:<\/p>\n Before discussing the best practices for ensuring data security, we would like to demonstrate the most popular ways hackers breach mortgage systems<\/b>.<\/p>\n Cybercriminals can compromise mortgage applications, disrupt systems, and corrupt files in many ways. In our experience, the most popular attack vectors include the following:<\/p>\n These security threats and exploits prevail, but the list is far from exhaustive. However, a range of practices can counter them.<\/p>\n \u201cTypically, mortgage software cybersecurity has weak spots in four layers: the code layer, the third-party layer, the server layer, and the database layer. These are the areas we pay special attention to when designing and developing custom fintech software solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Oleksandr Ryabtsev, Backend Lead at Django Stars<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The following cybersecurity practices can help mortgage companies prevent most data breaches and maintain business continuity by effectively mitigating potential damage.<\/p>\n A surprising number of companies ignore basic password policies. To prevent breaches, employees must set long and complex passwords. Companies should train them to use unique credentials for different accounts and never share them with anyone, especially by email or phone.<\/p>\n Multi-factor authentication requires users to provide extra information (like a code from a text message or email) to access business systems. ID verification for digital lenders enables extra security layers and reduces potential fraud. The system must also monitor all log-in attempts and respond to suspicious behavior, for example, repeated failures.<\/p>\n Strict device usage policies can lower the potential attack vector. The optimal option is to prohibit employees from using personal devices at work. If that\u2019s not possible, companies should enforce the BYOD (bring your own device) policy, such as using business-grade VPN services and anti-malware.<\/p>\n Role-based access control (RBAC) restricts mortgage applications, servers, and databases to users with the appropriate roles. Our company also uses the principle of least privilege to ensure the employees have the minimum levels of access to fulfill their responsibilities. This also helps trace the origin of data breaches if they occur.<\/p>\n Access to all users, devices, and applications must be continuously validated. Companies can route traffic through a dedicated firewall, secured web gateway, or secure access service edge (SASE) platforms. Cisco<\/a> found that businesses practicing these policies are 35% more likely to excel at SecOps. Setting packet length and request limitations based on the average load can prevent downtime caused by DoS attacks. However, it’s critical to separate real attacks from increased demand. We use rate-based, regex match, and geographic rules in AWS WAF to block malicious requests on the cloud level.<\/p>\n Experienced security teams simulate attacks and practice chaos engineering, trying to anticipate what tactics attackers might use. Practicing these every week is reported to give a 30%<\/a> lift in security performance (compared to companies that practice them only once a year). In addition, some companies run Purple Team Exercises by letting employees compete as attackers and security experts.<\/p>\n Consolidated cloud-based technologies are much easier to update than distributed, on-premise environments. Over 72%<\/a> of companies with mature security technology integration and a higher degree of automation prefer the cloud. What\u2019s more, about 37% of these organizations deploy cybersecurity tools from a single vendor to further improve their technology integration.<\/p>\n Companies that refresh IT security for mortgage products regularly have 30%<\/a> more chances to keep up with business demands than those who do it every few years. The teams should take time to remove unnecessary features, files, and dependencies after upgrades. Organizations must defragment their siloed technology into highly integrated systems that work as functional units. Doing so can increase<\/a> security program success (11-15%) and threat detection (41%).<\/p>\n Threat intelligence software collects, processes, and analyzes security data to contextualize compromise indicators. It gives insight into the techniques, tactics, and procedures used by attackers and may reveal problems in-house experts might have previously missed.<\/p>\n The company stays resilient when disaster recovery capabilities cover at least 80%<\/a> of its business-critical systems. The disaster recovery plan (DRP) must cover different attack vectors and include a high-level strategy, like backups of the source code and key data to secure data servers and automated encryption after a breach.<\/p>\n Many of these practices rely on technology. And being a software development vendor, these are some of the tools Django Stars uses to ensure cybersecurity.<\/p>\n Cybersecurity tools must be well-integrated into the client\u2019s existing processes, otherwise, their efficiency drops. Knowing that, here are the tools and approaches we would use when developing mortgage platforms for our clients:<\/p>\n Now, what should a company do if its in-house team lacks the expertise to incorporate these practices and software tools? Ask for professional help.<\/p>\n Django Stars focuses on the Shift Left approach. We do not test for vulnerabilities after the initial coding phase. Instead, we make cybersecurity an integral part of development from the very start.<\/p>\n Our company has official ISO\/IEC 27001 for Information Technology, Security Techniques, and Information Security Management Systems certification. We document, implement, and maintain top-grade security standards throughout all projects. One of them, Molo Finance, lets customers get immediate loan approvals online without traditional hurdles.<\/p>\n We also designed and developed Money Park \u2014 an advisory platform that helps find optimal mortgage deals. Having learned the ins and outs of financial, investment, and mortgage systems, we know what to pay attention to and what pitfalls to expect. And this makes the software we develop reliable, compliant, and secure.<\/p>\n Proactive cybersecurity must be at the forefront of any mortgage product and financial software. Best practices like multi-factor authentication, cloud-based deployment, cyber threat intelligence, and more can help maintain critical operations and protect against a broader range of threats.<\/p>\n There is hardly any way to safeguard systems against all attacks, but an experienced software vendor can make them as secure as they can be.<\/p>\n So if you are looking to modernize software with top-grade security tools and create a secure mortgage app from scratch, our vetted developers, designers, and QA experts can help. Have an idea? Let's discuss!<\/p>\n\n \n <\/p> Importance of Cybersecurity for the Mortgage Industry<\/h2>\n
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\nA HomeTrust Mortgage<\/a> company reported a data breach in July 2022, where attackers stole consumer information and rendered some fields inaccessible with ransomware. In another instance of a data breach, Lender American Financial Resources<\/a> suffered a leak of 216,645 borrowers in March 2022.<\/p>\n\n
How Criminals Breach IT Security for Mortgage Products<\/h2>\n
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12 Practices to Maximize Cybersecurity for Mortgage Software<\/h2>\n
1. Secure password practices<\/h3>\n
2. Advanced authentication measures<\/h3>\n
3. Device usage policies<\/h3>\n
4. Access control<\/h3>\n
5. Zero trust policy<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n6. Request limits<\/h3>\n
7. Hacking simulations<\/h3>\n
8. Cloud-based deployment<\/h3>\n
9. Proactive technical updates<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n10. Unified business architecture<\/h3>\n
11. Cyber threat intelligence<\/h3>\n
12. Prompt disaster recovery<\/h3>\n
Technologies to Improve Cybersecurity of Mortgage Platforms<\/h2>\n
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Our Cybersecurity Services for Mortgage Apps<\/h2>\n
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\nSpeaking of projects, over the years, we’ve built a portfolio of multiple custom mortgage software solutions<\/a>.<\/p>\nFinal Thoughts<\/h2>\n
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