{"id":8019,"date":"2026-06-16T15:54:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wealthapi.eu\/?p=8019"},"modified":"2026-06-16T15:55:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:55:03","slug":"the-greatest-vulnerability-in-the-financial-system-is-its-ecosystem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wealthapi.eu\/en\/the-greatest-vulnerability-in-the-financial-system-is-its-ecosystem\/","title":{"rendered":"The greatest vulnerability in the financial system is its ecosystem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Banks invest billions in their IT security. Firewalls are hardened, systems segmented, access controlled. And yet, damages from cybercrime continue to rise. In Germany, most recently to \u20ac289 billion per year according to <\/span>Bitkom<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason is structural: attacks are increasingly targeting not individual institutions, but the connections between them. APIs, third-party providers, integrated services\u2014precisely where data flows and responsibility is shared. The <\/span>attack on the crypto exchange Bybit<\/span><\/a> in early 2025 demonstrated this exemplarily. Not the platform itself was compromised, but the user interface of a connected service provider. A single weak link was enough to cause damage of approximately $1.5 billion. <\/span><\/p>\n

The new reality: attacks target connections, not systems<\/span><\/h2>\n

How deep this vulnerability runs is shown by a second incident that only became known at the end of March 2026: attackers compromised the maintainer account of the npm package axios, one of the most popular HTTP libraries in the JavaScript world with over 100 million weekly downloads. Through manipulated versions, they injected a backdoor that affects Windows, macOS, and Linux alike. The entry point was not a technical exploit, but social engineering against a single person: the email address associated with the maintainer account was secretly changed to an attacker-controlled account. <\/span>Google Threat Intelligence<\/span><\/a> attributes the attack to the North Korean group UNC1069. The case shows: even those who perfectly secure their own infrastructure import potential vulnerabilities with every open-source package from sources over which they have no direct control. The attack surface no longer ends with one’s own code, but extends deep into build pipelines and dependency trees. <\/span><\/p>\n

For API-based financial infrastructures, this is a systemic risk. Security can no longer be thought of in isolation. It is a property of the entire ecosystem. In networked financial systems, it emerges\u2014or fails\u2014at the interfaces. This is precisely where wealthAPI comes in. As a BaFin-regulated account information service, we aggregate and process financial data from thousands of banks and brokers daily. For us, security is not a downstream process and not a single feature. It is an architectural decision. And one deliberately made where we must relinquish control: at the interfaces to third parties. <\/span><\/p>\n

This article shows how we translate this perspective into concrete systems, processes, and standards\u2014from ISO 27001 certification to managing third-party risks in an increasingly networked financial world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why traditional security approaches are no longer sufficient<\/span><\/h2>\n

New quality of attacks<\/span><\/h3>\n

Attacks have changed qualitatively: AI-powered phishing is personalized and barely detectable, state-sponsored groups operate at enterprise level, and ransomware is evolving from loud attacks to silent data theft. The goal is no longer the disruption of systems, but the undetected compromise of data flows. <\/span><\/p>\n

Open Banking expands the attack surface<\/span><\/h3>\n

What particularly affects us as an industry: API-based business models and Open Banking integrations significantly expand the attack surface. Fintechs today have a broader and more fragmented data base than many traditional banks\u2014and at the same time often less mature security structures. This leads to a structural imbalance: maximum data availability with simultaneously increased attack surface. <\/span><\/p>\n

Vincent Haupert, PhD in computer science, former hacker, and founder of Yaxi, who became known ten years ago for uncovering vulnerabilities at N26, recently put it succinctly in the <\/span>FinanceFWD Podcast<\/span><\/a> : many fintechs have hardly learned anything in terms of security. Limited budgets and other priorities stand in the way. This gap is not an operational problem, but a structural one. And it cannot be closed through individual measures, but only through architecture. <\/span><\/p>\n

Regulatory pressure as a catalyst<\/span><\/h3>\n

Regulators have also responded. Since January 2025, the Digital Operational Resilience Act ( <\/span>DORA<\/span><\/a>) has been in effect, making BaFin the central reporting hub for ICT incidents across the entire financial sector. In addition to banks and payment service providers, insurers and securities firms must now also report ICT incidents. <\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, the ECB and BaFin have announced targeted reviews and threat-led penetration tests for 2026. Weaknesses in IT governance or third-party risk management are considered serious compliance violations. And with the upcoming Financial Data Access ( <\/span>FiDA<\/span><\/a>) regulation, requirements for the protection of financial data will be further tightened and extended to new data types.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our foundation: security from day one<\/span><\/h2>\n

When I first wrote extensively about <\/span>cybersecurity at wealthAPI<\/span><\/a> in April 2024, I formulated <\/span>ISO 27001 certification<\/span><\/a> as a concrete goal. Today, nearly two years later, we have achieved this goal. The journey there has elevated our entire security architecture to a new level. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the fundamental principles that have guided us since our founding have remained the same. Security at wealthAPI was never a retrospective add-on, but part of our DNA from the beginning. ISO 27001 certification was neither an end in itself nor a pure compliance project. Rather, it was a means to systematize and harden our architecture. <\/span><\/p>\n

What security means in practice<\/span><\/h2>\n

1. Quality as the first line of defense<\/span><\/h3>\n

Many security problems arise from internal vulnerabilities in code. To combine the highest code quality with agile release cycles, we have relied on test-driven development (TDD) from the start. The application is fully and automatically tested with every single change, no matter how small. In addition, mandatory peer reviews following the four-eyes principle apply to all code changes. No code reaches the production environment without at least one other developer having reviewed it. Additionally, we use AI-powered analysis to detect patterns, anomalies, and potential vulnerabilities in complex code dependencies early on. These systems extend traditional static analysis but do not replace human review. <\/span><\/p>\n

2. Infrastructure: standardization instead of custom builds<\/span><\/h3>\n

We deliberately chose standardized, hardened cloud infrastructure in Google Cloud Frankfurt instead of operating our own systems. Not because custom solutions are inherently insecure, but because standardized platforms are continuously hardened at a level that is hardly economically achievable internally. <\/span><\/p>\n

Within Google Cloud, we use an encapsulated infrastructure: all components run in their own Virtual Private Network (VPC) and are not visible from the outside. Our backups are encrypted with data-at-rest encryption, particularly sensitive data such as login credentials are separately encrypted again within this overall encryption. Furthermore, we consistently separate sensitive and less sensitive systems. <\/span><\/p>\n

This network segmentation provides defense-in-depth: even if one component is compromised, other systems remain protected.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Data classification: knowing what you protect<\/span><\/h3>\n

In a rapidly growing fintech, new systems, databases, and services are regularly added. Maintaining an overview of all assets and classifying them consistently is not trivial. We work with a three-tier data classification: <\/span><\/p>\n