Revolut’s Threat Intelligence Lead shared the biggest risks that challenger bank faces

The problems that the financial industry is facing have always been on the minds of all executives of every financial firm. However, with the recent collapse of FTX, seemingly out of the blue, the interest in risks and threats that financial firms have to deal with have become a hot topic in the industry.

After all, crypto and traditional finance may have their differences, but they are still both ultimately about managing money, and that means that they face very similar challenges. With Revolut, a popular challenge bank, having a foot in both worlds, its Threat Intelligence Lead, Vladimir Krupnov, spoke about his experience and impressions regarding the dangers and pitfalls for companies in the financial sector.

The biggest threat to fintech

Krupnov first spoke about the start-up culture at Revolut’s headquarters in London, as well as the challenges that came with the firm’s rapid growth. Founded in 2015, Revolut managed to attract over 25 million customers in only 7 years. It has users from all over the world, but Krupnov pointed out that the more brand exposure the firm gets, the more people it attracts. Unfortunately, that also means that it is attracting other elements, primarily hackers and scammers.

However, he noted that the biggest threat to fintech is a third-party risk. Having third parties involved in the vendor life cycle opens the company to numerous vulnerabilities, including the risk of hacking attacks. Even so, he believes that there is a way to protect the firm from such problems, but it requires discussion and collaboration, as well as taking security seriously, as it is a global issue.

He pointed out that companies often tend to exclude their competitors from security talks, which he sees as the wrong approach. Security is outside of competition, and everyone needs to understand that and join forces since they are threatened by a common enemy.

Sharing information is key

Krupnov does have cautious optimism regarding information shared by communities, noting that he sees more and more of them forming and working together on sharing data and finding solutions and threat-related information, which is encouraging. Of course, this is all still in its early days, so it is very chaotic, but there are signs that a reliable system is beginning to form there.

Other than that, Krupnov praised the UK for fighting back against cybercrime, noting that the country is very much forward-thinking. He expects that the Online safety bill could have positive contributions to general safety.

He also briefly commented on the FTX incident and the hundreds of millions of dollars that were drained from the now-bankrupt exchange. He noted that, when it comes to volumes that high, it is usually the result of inside involvement. He believes that this could be either intentional or unintentional, but all information points towards an inside job.