Banking and Finance Sector-Specific Plan - U.S. Department of ...

mon set of guidelines that would be applicable to most situations. The ability to establish such a document could be easily
adapted to other industries.
N The financial sector is an especially good area for a test due to the large volume of transactions and their susceptibility to
fraud. For example, use of a stenographic technique within the data transfer to identify a user will enhance identity management
benefiting all industries in the short term.
O Where security vulnerabilities present challenges, the only option so far available to the financial sector is to discontinue
service. Research into the motivation for targeting certain financial services and institutions may enable the financial sector
and other industries to develop methods for devaluing services.
P Simulation is key to predicting the impact of vulnerabilities and protective measures. Financial service simulation is
relatively easy to accomplish as physical resources generally are not required. Yet research into business process simulation
may benefit all industries.
Q There is currently a distinct inability to rationalize spending additional money on information security due to the lack of
data on the impact of threats enacted due to vulnerabilities that could have been avoided. There is therefore a lack of any
standardized return on investment calculation. Such research could benefit all industries that employ information security
tools and techniques.
4.5 Understanding and Avoiding the Insider Threat
B, D, M Prevention and protection of assets from trusted insiders need to capitalize on automatic mechanisms that enforce
dual controls, separation of duties, role-based permissions, and configuration controls that can detect, alert, and respond to
attempts of installing rogue software in production systems.
I Financial institutions have numerous case studies and scenarios where motivation combined with opportunity result in
fraud. Research in human and social issues should be targeted at reducing the motivation quotient of the fraud equation.
I Financial institutions provide corrupt insiders with financial motivation. Research into methods of devaluing assets upon
detection of insider manipulation may serve to reduce this threat.
G Automation of mechanisms to detect potential malicious activity or escalation of privileges are required for all computing
resources, including end-user PCs and laptops attached to corporate networks.
4.6 Financial Information Tracing and Policy Enforcement
B Financial information policy enforcement would benefit from advances in prevention systems with respect to real-time
information sharing on known fraud issues to block transactions.
E Financial information policy enforcement would benefit from research into decision support with respect to terrorist
economic activity.
G Financial information tracing would benefit from research into emerging threats to an individual’s financial status and
vulnerability analysis aids.
H As infrastructure architectures become more advanced, a constant focus on policy enforcement will be required to identify
the infrastructure component upon which a given compute operation depends. A focus on rigorous and concrete regulatory
logging requirements will provide detailed requirements for those research activities.
I Human and social issues are key to policy enforcement and focus on accountability, and the level of traceability requested
to establish it with respect to financial transactions will serve to establish criteria for success in influencing behavior.
00 Banking and Finance Sector-Specific Plan