Cybersecurity for Banks, Fintechs and Financial Institutions

Cybersecurity for banks combines penetration testing, continuous monitoring and regulatory alignment across core banking, digital channels and the integration mesh. In Brazil the starting point is the BACEN/CMN cybersecurity resolutions, including Joint Resolution 4.893, which govern security policy, incident response and requirements for contracting cloud services.

Berghem assesses authentication and authorization, environment segregation, API exposure and SOC operations, plus Red Team exercises that simulate fraud and account takeover. We also track initiatives such as DREX, which expand the attack surface of digital settlement and custody.

In core banking, the focus falls on business logic: account opening, credit approval, transfers and settlement, where authorization flaws can produce fraud without exploiting any classic technical vulnerability. Berghem combines application and API pentest, configuration review and Red Team exercises that chain initial access, lateral movement and privilege abuse, simulating the behavior of a real adversary. We also assess the integration mesh with acquirers, bureaus and providers, a recurring point of exposure in banking environments that grow through acquisition and partnerships.

For a full sector view, with use cases and attack scenarios, see also our pentest for banks and fintechs.

Institutions authorized by the Central Bank must meet the requirements of BACEN Resolution 4893 compliance, with an annual pentest and a documented action plan.

Fintechs must prove security to regulators, banking partners and customers from day one. The work covers licensing as a payment institution (IP), direct credit company (SCD) and Banking as a Service (BaaS) models, focused on Open Finance, PIX and the sensitive-data flows these operations require.

Because most are cloud-native, we prioritize application and API pentest, cloud configuration review, DevSecOps pipelines and secrets management. The goal is to reduce risk without slowing releases — security that keeps pace with the product.

In fintechs, release speed is a competitive advantage and also a source of risk. CI/CD pipelines, multi-account cloud environments and heavy use of third-party APIs widen the attack surface with every release. Berghem embeds security into the development cycle with DevSecOps practices: code review, dependency analysis, automated security tests in the pipeline and secrets management. For regulated operations such as payment institutions, direct credit companies and BaaS, we align testing with Open Finance and PIX requirements, demonstrating to banking partners that the operation meets security and privacy expectations.

Credit cooperatives, brokerages, insurers and other financial institutions face the same regulatory requirements with smaller teams and budgets. Here the priority is to map risk per critical asset and direct investment toward the highest-impact tests.

Berghem supports third-party risk management (TPRM) over vendors and technology providers, business continuity and incident response plans, and recurring assessment cycles that sustain compliance over time, not just at audit points.

Cooperatives and smaller institutions benefit from a phased security program that spreads investment over time instead of concentrating it in a single annual test. Berghem structures recurring assessment cycles, remediation retests and indicator tracking, so regulatory compliance is sustained continuously. This model also supports third-party risk management, since much of these institutions' technology is supplied by integrators and specialized software vendors.

Regardless of size, the common denominator is traceability: showing regulators and auditors that risks were identified, prioritized and treated. Berghem frames findings in language aligned with the applicable frameworks — BACEN/CMN resolutions, PCI DSS, LGPD and ISO 27001 — so the same technical work serves both real security improvement and the formal evidence of compliance required in audits and due diligence.

Payment security protects transactions from the card to settlement. Berghem tests authorization flows, EMV chip, POS terminals, ATMs, anti-fraud systems and electronic-voting audit, detailed in the scenarios below. For in-depth PCI adequacy, see also payment security.

The payment chain concentrates some of the sector's most sensitive assets: cardholder data, cryptographic keys and the communication between terminal, acquirer and issuer. Berghem tests these components end to end — from terminal hardware and embedded firmware to the authorization protocols and anti-fraud controls that decide each transaction. The scenarios below detail how we assess EMV, POS, ATM, fraud engines and electronic-voting audit, always correlating findings with the PCI DSS requirements applicable to each environment.

When assessing terminals and ATMs, we combine hardware analysis, firmware reverse engineering and protocol testing to reproduce scenarios such as authorization-flow manipulation, relay attacks and dispensing fraud. For anti-fraud systems, we measure how effectively rules and models catch card-not-present, account-takeover and synthetic-identity patterns, helping to tune detection without adding excessive friction for legitimate customers.