Cybersecurity for Financial Services

The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act requires covered financial entities to manage ICT risk across their operations, including risk introduced by third parties and by the data entering their systems. Its supporting technical standards address protection against malicious code and information leakage. For file and data workflows, that means inspecting inbound content, preventing malicious files from reaching critical systems, and retaining evidence that those controls ran. OPSWAT supports these obligations by inspecting, sanitizing, and logging every file entering financial systems.

PCI DSS establishes security requirements for payment account data and applicable systems, including protection against malicious software and safeguards for stored account data. Files containing cardholder data may fall within scope, depending on how and where they are stored, processed, or transmitted. Multi-engine malware detection and content sanitization support the anti-malware requirements, and data loss prevention helps prevent cardholder data from leaving through file channels.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act’s Safeguards Rule requires US financial institutions to protect customer information, with specific obligations determined by the applicable regulator. Because customer data most often moves as files such as statements, applications, and tax documents, inspecting and sanitizing those files and logging each result supports the safeguards and access-control elements the rule expects.

Banks can reduce file-based malware by inspecting every file at configured entry points rather than relying on detection after execution. Layered controls increase the detection rates. Effective controls combine multi-engine scanning and machine learning to catch known and unknown malware, content disarm and reconstruction to recursively neutralize zero-day exploits from documents, and file-type verification to catch spoofed extensions. OPSWAT applies these controls at customer uploads, email attachments, file transfers, cloud storage, and removable media.

OPSWAT operates at a different layer than endpoint detection and response. EDR platforms detect and respond to threats executing on devices, while OPSWAT inspects and sanitizes file content before it reaches a device or a core banking system. A financial institution typically runs both: EDR for endpoint behavior, and OPSWAT for the files and data moving through its workflows.

Yes. OPSWAT deploys on-premises, in hybrid environments, and in the cloud, with support for AWS, Azure, and GCP. Financial institutions integrate it using ICAP, APIs, and native connectors to existing managed file transfer platforms, email gateways, file servers, and cloud storage. This includes scanning files in cloud object storage across multiple accounts and regions.

OPSWAT’s file-security capabilities help financial institutions implement malware prevention, data protection, and security logging controls that support applicable requirements under DORA, PCI DSS, GLBA, GDPR, and NYDFS Part 500, as well as relevant NIST framework outcomes. Compliance is always determined by an institution’s full control environment, not by any single product. To learn how OPSWAT can support your organization’s compliance efforts, contact our team to discuss your requirements.

The performance impact varies by organization, depending on infrastructure, file characteristics, and enabled security controls. OPSWAT works with your team to understand your environment and recommend deployment options and scanning policies that best fit your workflows, security needs, and performance requirements.