Cybercrime is increasingly less likely to begin at the moment a payment is made. Far more often, it stems from earlier incidents, such as data breaches, the theft of login credentials or the exploitation of security vulnerabilities. In response to this trend, Visa has unveiled its new Visa Threat Intelligence Platform (VTIP), which is designed to help banks and financial institutions detect threats before they result in financial losses.
The new solution was unveiled at the Visa Payments Forum in Paris. The platform utilises the same tools and data that Visa uses to secure its own global payment network. The aim is to combine cybersecurity intelligence with payment analytics to identify potential threats more quickly and mitigate the risk of fraud.
“Fraud is often the result of cyberattacks that go undetected until it is too late,” said Mandy Lamb, Head of Value-Added Services at Visa Europe. “The Visa Threat Intelligence Platform helps financial institutions identify threats earlier and respond to them more effectively before they lead to fraud or financial losses. By combining cybersecurity and payments data, we enable our clients to better protect consumers, minimise the impact of fraud and strengthen trust in digital payments.”
The platform has been designed with teams responsible for cybersecurity, risk management and fraud prevention in mind. It includes features for detecting malware, monitoring system vulnerabilities, identifying brand impersonation attempts, protecting employee identities and searching for stolen payment data on the dark web. A key feature is the ability to link cybersecurity incidents to potential financial consequences, which facilitates faster action.
Visa emphasises that the solution was first tested within its own environment. The company reports that it blocks around 90 million cyberattack attempts and 11 million phishing messages every month across more than 200 countries, and that the experience gained whilst protecting its own infrastructure has been utilised in the development of the new platform.
The launch of VTIP is part of a broader strategic direction for Visa, which in recent months has been unveiling a series of solutions related to payment security and the use of artificial intelligence. The company reports that over the past five years it has invested more than $13 billion in technology development, including systems designed to reduce fraud and strengthen the security of the payment network. In the face of a growing number of attacks based on social engineering and AI tools, it is becoming increasingly important not only to protect individual transactions but also to detect threats earlier across the entire payments ecosystem.
