Mastercard expands cybersecurity, risk services with new attack simulation and assessment platform

Financial services giant Mastercard has announced the launch of a new attack simulation and assessment platform designed to help businesses and governments enhance their cybersecurity operational resilience. Cyber Front, enabled by a strategic minority investment in cybersecurity vendor Picus Security, reveals organizations’ security gaps and provides real-time mitigation insights so they can improve upon cybersecurity investments with continuous validation, Mastercard stated. The launch comes as Mastercard continues to invest in cybersecurity and risk management capabilities.

Cyber Front leverages more than 3,500 real-world threat scenarios

In a press release, Mastercard said that Cyber Front, built as an always-on platform, supports customers in strengthening digital ecosystems by validating the effectiveness of their cybersecurity controls to prevent and detect threats, leveraging a continuously updated library of more than 3,500 real-world threat scenarios. Its ultimate goal is to aid businesses in understanding if their systems are effective and identifying areas of exposure to ensure greater protection in both the immediate and long term, it continued.

Raj Seshadri, president of data and services at Mastercard, commented, “We’re helping customers embrace the opportunities – and challenges – of digital transformation. Given the rising cost of data breaches, effective cybersecurity is tops on that list. Organizations not only need robust defenses today, they need to be testing, learning, and adapting to remain resilient tomorrow. Our investment in Picus Security and the launch of Cyber Front will enable swifter, smarter cybersecurity decisions with better outcomes for our customers, their employees and, ultimately, their users.”

Mastercard expands cybersecurity and risk practices

Mastercard’s Cyber Front launch is the latest move taken by the firm to invest in cybersecurity and risk management services to help companies drive performance, expanding its existing capabilities in these areas. Along with RiskRecon and Cyber Quant cyber risk solutions already in play, Mastercard recently announced partnerships with both the Paris Chamber of Commerce to enhance cyber resiliency for approximately 5,000 small businesses and Europol to share insights, identify key activities, and increase cyber resilience across Europe. It also launched the Mastercard Cyber Resilience Centre in Waterloo, Belgium, in 2020.

Omdia Senior Principal Analyst Rik Turner tells CSO Mastercard’s Cyber Front release reflects the security market trend of investment in proactive technology to complement detection and response solutions. “What Mastercard is doing with Cyber Front is enabling merchants (and presumably banks) that work with its payment cards to strengthen their defenses without waiting to be attacked to identify any holes in them.”

Threat actors generally – and fraudsters in particular – have picked up on the trend toward ever more online commerce and are redoubling their efforts at purloining payment card details, whether to sell them to other miscreants online or to exploit them in actions that hurt the victims’ finances, Turner adds. “By investing in both cybersecurity and risk, Mastercard seeks to gird itself for battle, and with Cyber Front, it aims to do the same for its partners in the chain.”