Mastercard Launches AI-Powered Solution To Protect The Digital Ecosystem

Cyber Secure^TM advances first set of integrated cyber capabilities for banks & their businesses

November 05, 2020, Purchase – Mastercard today announced Cyber Secure, a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered suite of tools that allows banks to assess cyber risk across their ecosystem and prevent potential breaches. With these capabilities, banks can identify and prioritize threats and vulnerabilities throughout their cyber environment. Additionally, acquiring banks can help merchants understand their own cyber risk, preventing hundreds of millions of dollars in potential fraud.

As the digital economy expands, both in size and complexity, so too do its points of vulnerability that may be subject to attack. One example of this is the rapidly advancing Internet of Things – 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated by people and their devices every day, with 90% of this generated in the last two years alone.¹ It is estimated that one business will fall victim to a ransomware attack every 11 seconds by next year².

“The world today faces a $5.2 trillion cyber breach problem³. This is one of the biggest threats to consumer trust. At Mastercard, we aim to stay ahead of fraudsters and to continually evolve and enhance our protection of cyber environments for our bank and merchant customers. With Cyber Secure, we have a suite of AI-powered cyber capabilities that allows us to do just that, ensuring trust across every experience, for businesses and consumers,” said Ajay Bhalla, president, Cyber & Intelligence, Mastercard.

Cyber Secure is a big step forward in the continuous quantifying and prioritizing of cyber vulnerabilities. By empowering banks with the ability to continuously monitor and track their cyber posture, it moves our industry to a more proactive state in managing and preventing data compromise, protecting the integrity of the payment ecosystem and consumer data. In addition, it helps to reduce financial losses associated with attacks, saves time and resources, and provides a comprehensive view of cyber risk through one application.

Drawing on the industry-leading capabilities of RiskRecon, acquired by Mastercard in 2020, the risk assessment is performed using advanced AI that combines multiple public and proprietary data sources. The AI evaluates the data against 40 security and infrastructure criteria, with the impact and importance of each vulnerability analyzed to produce a cyber risk rating and issue priority navigator.

In 2019, Mastercard saved stakeholders $20bn of fraud through its AI-enabled cyber systems. Cyber Secure forms a key part of Mastercard’s multi-layered cyber security strategy to secure the ecosystem, protect cyber environments, define industry standards and collaborate across industries.

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For more details on Cyber Secure

Cyber Secure is an integrated platform that builds upon the existing Mastercard Account Data Compromise Program.  Cyber Secure honors website restrictions and applicable cybersecurity laws. For additional information on Cyber Secure, merchants may visit https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/business/overview/safety-and-security/cyber-security.html.  Merchants may also request a cyber risk rating of their business through their acquiring bank or Mastercard at [email protected].

About Mastercard (NYSE: MA)

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Contacts

Dania Saidam [email protected]

+44 (0)7980 782 750

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Cyber Secure FAQ

Overview

What is Mastercard Cyber Secure?

Cyber Secure is a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered suite of tools that allows banks to assess cyber risk across their ecosystem and prevent potential breaches. With these capabilities, banks can identify and prioritize threats and vulnerabilities throughout their cyber environment. Additionally, acquiring banks can help merchants understand their own cyber risk, preventing hundreds of millions of dollars in potential fraud.

What are the benefits for issuers and acquirers?

By empowering banks with the ability to continuously monitor and track their cyber posture, Cyber Secure moves our industry to a more proactive state in managing and preventing data compromise, protecting the integrity of the ecosystem and consumer data. In addition, it helps reduce financial losses associated with attacks, saves time and resources, and provides a comprehensive view of cyber risk through one application.

Does Cyber Secure guarantee protection from data breaches?

No. Cyber Secure provides a suite of capabilities that enable financial institutions to identify and prioritize cyber threats and vulnerabilities. Should a breach occur, Cyber Secure helps financial institutions to detect and possibly resolve the breach faster, reducing their potential fraud losses.

In what markets is Cyber Secure available?

Cyber Secure is available globally to all issuers and acquirers.

How does Cyber Secure compare to other services in the market?

Cyber Secure is the only solution in the market offering an integrated and holistic view of cyber risk, combining data compromise detection and cyber risk assessment capabilities within a single solution that uses advanced AI and machine learning technologies to protect the entire digital ecosystem. While some competitors may have certain cyber security capabilities, only Cyber Secure maintains the most robust, comprehensive set of capabilities.

Are issuers and acquirers required to participate in Cyber Secure?

Yes, Mastercard is requiring the participation of all customers within Cyber Secure to protect the entire digital ecosystem, enabling cyber risk management at multiple stakeholder touchpoints. Under current Mastercard Standards, customers are required to participate in the ADC (Account Data Compromise) Program available through the Manage My Fraud & Risk application. Cyber Secure hosts the enhanced ADC Program, so all issuers and acquirers are required to participate in the enhanced ADC Program hosted on Cyber Secure. Mastercard automatically enrolls all new and existing issuers and acquirers in Cyber Secure.

How it Works

How does Cyber Secure work?

Cyber Secure provides issuers and acquirers with insights into compromised data, as well as cyber risk rating and actionable plans for cyber vulnerabilities including:

• Predictive notifications of PANs potentially at risk for fraud as a result of account data compromise
• A cyber risk rating based on an aggregated risk assessment of vulnerabilities found within their cyber environments, as well as their customers’ cyber environments (acquirers’ online merchants involved in data compromise investigations)
• Account Data Compromise (ADC) alerts supporting potential account data compromise
• Actionable plans to mitigate existing vulnerabilities within their cyber environment

Financial institutions can receive alerts, report potential ADC events, manage cases (acquirers only), receive cyber risk snapshots (all acquirers’ online merchants) and receive detailed cyber risk reports.

For which transactions is Cyber Secure available?

The data compromise detection capabilities available via Cyber Secure support all Mastercard® brands (i.e. Mastercard, Maestro®, and Cirrus®), segments (i.e., consumer and commercial) and products (i.e. credit, debit). Cyber Secure cyber risk scoring capabilities are brand and payment agnostic.

Cyber Strategy

What is Mastercard’s cyber security strategy? How does Cyber Secure feature in that strategy?

Mastercard has a multi-layered cyber security strategy to secure the ecosystem, protect cyber environments, define industry standards and collaborate across industries and government. Cyber Secure is a key part of the strategy to protect cyber environments, evaluating and mitigating cyber vulnerabilities across all stakeholder touchpoints.

What is a cyber risk rating?

A cyber risk rating is determined by passively evaluating the security and infrastructure safeguards and gaps in an organization’s online cyber environment without interfering in its day-to-day business. With Cyber Secure, the cyber risk rating is calibrated by evaluating over 40 criteria across 11 security domains (including email security, data loss history, governance, threat intelligence, web encryption, software patching, system hosting). Cyber risk rating also assesses the business impact and criticality of each vulnerability uncovered to help determine an organization’s final cyber risk rating .

How do Cyber Secure and RiskRecon work together?

Cyber Secureidentifies cyber threat vulnerabilities of financial institutions and their customer relationships (acquirers’ online merchants). RiskRecon provides the underlying cyber risk rating capabilities that enable Cyber Secure. RiskRecon also allows issuers and acquirers to further assess the cyber risk from all their third-party service provider and vendor relationships should they want to extend their cyber risk visibility beyond their own organizations and those of their customers (acquirers’ online merchants) enabled by Cyber Secure.

How does Cyber Secure differ from Safety Net?

Cyber Secure and Safety Net are both part of Mastercard’s comprehensive approach to cyber security. While both solutions passively monitor environments for risk and notify financial institutions of identified risk, they do so in different ways. Safety Net monitors authorization activity across the Mastercard payment network to detect large-scale fraud and cyber attacks. It specifically evaluates payment transactions that are processed via the Mastercard network. Cyber Secure monitors the cyber presence of issuer and acquirer organizations to detect vulnerabilities that could lead to potential data compromise as a result of cyber attacks. This is not specific to transactions managed via the Mastercard payment network.

How can I learn more about Cyber Secure?

Cyber Secure is an integrated platform that builds upon the existing Mastercard Account Data Compromise Program.  Cyber Secure honors website restrictions and applicable cybersecurity laws. For additional information on Cyber Secure, merchants may visit https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/business/overview/safety-and-security/cyber-security.html.  Merchants may also request a cyber risk rating of their business through their acquiring bank or Mastercard at [email protected].