Secure, Compliant, and Resilient Identity Security for Financial Services

RSA has protected financial services organizations for more than 40 years. Today, more than 9,000 security-first organizations, including global banks, regional banks, credit unions, and capital markets firms trust RSA to secure identity across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.

Together, phishing and credential abuse are the most frequent initial threat vector for financial service data breaches. Financial institutions and regulators across the globe are tightening authentication and access governance requirements. RSA is the only platform that unifies phishing-resistant authentication, help desk identity verification, and automated access governance, giving financial institutions a single, proven foundation to prevent credential-based attacks, satisfy regulators, and develop operational resilience.

Financial institutions are high-value targets for cybercriminals. Stolen credentials, weak authentication, and social engineering provide threat actors with the initial access they need to gain access to internal systems and privileged infrastructure. AI is increasing the scale and sophistication of phishing and social engineering attacks, including IT help desk impersonation and MFA bypass attempts. Many financial institutions still rely on passwords and OTP as primary authentication methods, creating persistent security, regulatory, and operational risks.

How RSA helps:

• Hardware- and software-based phishing-resistant passwordless authentication eliminates the credentials attackers attempt to steal
• Adaptive access policies detect and block suspicious login attempts in real time
• Bi-directional identity verification protects the IT help desk from social engineering bypass attacks and can secure wire transfer authorization, payments, and account access requests
• AI-driven risk analytics identify anomalous access behavior before threats escalate into breaches
• Identifies dormant and orphaned accounts, eliminating a common attack vector in financial sector breaches and reducing exposure scrutinized by regulators

Financial services organizations must meet a complex, overlapping set of identity and access requirements, spanning US mandates such as FFIEC authentication guidance and NY DFS 23 NYCRR 500, EU regulations including DORA and NIS2, and frameworks such as MAS TRM, APRA CPS 234, and SOX/GLBA. These regulations mandate strong authentication, access governance, privileged user controls, and audit-ready evidence of compliance. Manual processes cannot scale to meet these requirements across large, distributed workforces.

How RSA helps:

• Purpose-built controls mapped to FFIEC, NY DFS, DORA, NIS2, and SOX requirements, no custom configuration required
• Automated access certifications and audit reports ready for OCC, FDIC, and state regulatory examinations
• Enforces least-privilege and separation of duties policies consistently across all systems

Financial institutions rely on a complex mix of employees, contractors, third-party vendors, and partner organizations, all requiring access. Regulators expect that access is controlled, documented, and current. Managing access manually leads to delays, excessive permissions, orphaned accounts, and insider risk—all of which are scrutinized by regulators.

How RSA helps:

• Automates onboarding, role changes, and offboarding to ensure users have the right access at the right time
• Enforces role-based access controls (RBAC) and least-privilege policies across on-premises, private cloud, and hybrid environments
• Uses AI to continuously analyze entitlements across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, surfacing excessive permissions and access drift before they become audit findings
• Delivers a unified view of access, authentication, and governance activity across the identity landscape, giving financial institutions the visibility to act before risk becomes an audit finding or breach event

Learn more about how RSA secures financial services organizations.

• On-premises
• Air-gapped / classified environments
• Private cloud
• Hybrid (cloud and on-premises)

• NIST
• FIPS 140-2
• FIPS 140-3
• FIDO

See the full list of RSA certifications.

• FFIEC Authentication Guidance (US)
• NY DFS 23 NYCRR 500 (US)
• SOX / GLBA / PCI-DSS (US)
• DORA (EU) — Jan 2025 enforcement
• NIS2 Directive (EU)
• MAS TRM Guidelines (Singapore)
• APRA CPS 234 (Australia)