New Visa Threat Intelligence identifies cyber attacks on payments system

NEW DELHI: Visa Inc. and FireEye Inc. have jointly launched Visa Threat Intelligence, powered by FireEye. tailored to the needs of the payments industry, this new service will deliver real-time threat information to merchants and issuers so they can quickly assess and act on the most critical cyber attacks that could breach their payment systems.

Visa Threat Intelligence is claimed to be the first product available as part of a new global strategic partnership between Visa Inc. and FireEye. Beginning late 2015, subscribers will gain access to a powerful web portal that distills the latest proprietary cyber intelligence relevant to payment systems into actionable information, including timely alerts on malicious actors, methods, trends in cyber attacks, and in-depth forensic analysis from recent data beaches.

“Each week, merchants and card issuers receive thousands of alerts about possible cyber attacks, making it difficult to know which ones to focus on,” said Mark Nelsen, Senior Vice President of Risk Products and Business Intelligence, Visa Inc. “Visa Threat Intelligence removes the noise by assessing hundreds of threat indicators and serving up the most important and timely information. Users can then isolate and address those threats that are the most pressing and potentially damaging to their business and customers,” added Nelsen.

Nelsen also explained that more sophisticated users can also take advantage of APIs that can automatically feed threat indicator data into their own security systems. A premium offering will grant access to advanced tools, powered by FireEye Multi-Vector Virtual Execution (MVX) technology, that analyze and isolate malicious indicators from malware to identify suspicious activity from IP addresses and domains.

In addition, Visa Threat Intelligence will provide a secure platform where clients can opt to form trusted communities and safely exchange real-time threat intelligence. Leveraging community-based intelligence is crucial to a comprehensive defense strategy because many attack groups run campaigns that target organizations with a similar profile.

“Attack groups are exceptionally skilled at executing an attack across multiple organizations, identifying successful techniques and scaling those methods to an entire industry,” said Grady Summers, SVP and Chief Technology Officer, FireEye. “By partnering with Visa, we can provide targeted intelligence to the payments industry to combat the economies of scale that attackers employ, and help create a community united in a common defense.”

As noted in the latest FireEye M-Trends report, the payments industry continues to be an attractive target for cyber criminals as attackers find new ways to steal credit card numbers from point-of-sale (POS) systems. Through this global strategic relationship, Visa and FireEye are looking at new ways to empower merchants, issuers, and other payments players with the best technology, intelligence and expertise to protect their organizations. In early 2016, the partnership is expected to roll out additional solutions to identify malicious communications and recommend remediation steps based on activity in the network as well as infection rates across the network.