FinTech API Trust Is Broken

An illustrative case study of how FinSphere Capital secured its cross-cloud APIs against AI attacks with Hopr's Korvette WoSPs.

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Korvettes are Workload Security Proxies (WoSPs) designed and built to rigorously defend FinTech API endpoints within and across clouds and organizational domains.

CASE STUDY:
AI Attacks Exploiting Financial APIs

In 2024, financial services firms like FinSphere Capital faced a new wave of cyber threats: Autonomous, AI-driven attack agents.
AI agents probe and attack API endpoints faster than any human team could defend.

API Credential Theft
98% of workloads at FinSphere were talking over APIs. And the API endpoints leaked data due to key theft. Third party API users were the most vulnerable.
Session Hijacking
API Key theft was just the beginning. AI adversaries were discovering and weaponizing microservice communications in real time.
Third Party Access
Operating across AWS, Azure, and on-prem Kubernetes clusters gave FinSphere the business   agility it needed — but it left it too exposed.

Hopr's Korvette™ WoSPs enable FinSphere Capital to secure its application workloads, APIs, and data without a loss of agility

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Cloud Native AMTD
Workloads performing sensitive financial transactions and risk modelling are protected from untrusted or malicious access. Untrusted access attempts are immediately discovered and rejected.
Ephemeral Credentials
Access credentials to application workloads requires ephemeral credentials that can only be known by trusted workloads. Threats can't find and re-use credentials — they’re obsolete when the session closes.
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Seamless Networking
Application networks operate with frequent identity trust verification that enables seamless connectivity among workloads in different environments — even with third parties.

Customer Financial Transactions via a Portal

Real-time agility and accurate secure transactions are important to FinSphere and its customers. A FinSphere customer has an account on FinSphere's online portal for managing their portfolio and performing transactions, such as transferring funds, buying assets, or selling assets.

But without identity trust verification, dynamic access credentials, and AMTD access control trouble awaits in the cloud.
API Threat Protection Icon
01
Initial API query

A FinSphere customer initiates an online transaction through the FinSphere online portal, triggering FinSphere's application to make an API call to a Third-party affiliate to run a risk assessment.

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02
Third Party Authentication

The Third-party receives the API call with customer data and FinSphere's API key. It authenticates the key, processes the request and replies to FinSphere with risk data. No identity trust verification has occurred, but the both messages are encrypted with Transport Layer Security (TLS).

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03
FinSphere App Processing

The FinSphere application receives the Third-party risk data, processes it, and provides an update to the customer dashboard. The processing requires several microservice API transactions internal to FinSphere but in different clusters and clouds.

But trust with third party workloads is implicit — based on cloud IAM roles and PKI certs.

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04
Customer Dashboard Response

The FinSphere database and the customer's dashboard are updated after the transaction processing is complete. The customer is unaware that vulnerabilities in the API exchanges led to the compromise of their sensitive data and that malicious actors now possess FinSphere API keys and the customer data.

Benefits for FinTech Enterprises

Exfiltrated API credentials 

Eliminate Cyber Risk. Korvette WoSPs keep sensitive financial data confidential and tamper-proof and immediately recognize, log, and reject untrusted attempts to access a trusted workload.
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Exfiltrated API credentials 

Enforce Zero Trust by Default. Each API data transaction includes realtime identity trust verification and dynamic access credentials to ensure a high level of trust before data is shared.
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Exfiltrated API credentials 

Stronger Security Posture. Prevent credential theft and abuse with hopping credentials that make it nearly impossible for attackers to discover or exploit workload access and API endpoints.
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Exfiltrated API credentials 

Improved Compliance. Simple automation with built-in audit logs and immediate threat detection and rejection help meet PCI DSS requirements.
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API Threat Protection and Access Control

FinSphere's Solution — the Korvette

FinSphere's business relied on data shared among affiliated partners through a FinTech ecosystem. They deployed Korvette-S WoSPs within their corporate environments, and Korvette-SE WoSPs at the edge to build a Zero Trust network with third party affiliates. Third-party security teams welcomed the additional Zero Trust assurance to their security architecture.

Korvette Application Network

Korvette WoSPs, designed for the Zero Trust era, assured secure and trusted internal and edge API transactions.

Traditional API Protection

FinSphere's API protections could not verify identity trust and prevent abuse of stolen API keys.

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Designed for FinTech.
Ready for the Future.

Whether you’re connecting Capital Managers to Risk Assessors, Banks to Payment Processors, or Portfolios to Brokers, Hopr's Korvette delivers secure, compliant, and future proof API protection.
Regain control of your APIs and data.
Shrink your attack surface.
Assure data confidentiality.
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Schedule a Demo and Learn More About the Korvette

Schedule a demo of the Korvette to learn more about its advantages and discuss your use case during a short call with one of our experts.
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Hopr builds technology solutions for on-demand, Zero Trust, future-proof, and seamless networking of applications and devices within and across all cloud environments.

With Hopr, application networks and data are protected by a Cloud Native Automated Moving Target Defense (AMTD) that preemptively disrupts cyber threats before they can attack.

Hopr's innovations are packaged in a first-of-its-kind Workload Security Proxy (WoSP). WoSPs deliver AMTD for containerized workloads, enforce zero trust at every transaction, seamlessly connect across clusters, clouds, and data boundaries, and immediately discover and reject threat attempts to access a trusted workload.
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