How Financial Services Call Center Manage Cyber Security Threats

A growing trend continues among financial services and BFSI companies to outsource their customer service and back-office operations. Relying on call centers has long been a viable option for cost-cutting and scalability. While less dependency on in-house staff helps focus on core competencies, the risk of cyber threats and data breaches increases with outsourcing. However, a trusted and ISO-certified financial services call center can assure added data protection, stringent security measures, and firewall-protected call center tools.

Following are commonly occurring cybersecurity challenges that BFSI call centers often face and ways to handle them.

Firewall protected systems that stop telephony denial-of-service attacks

A Telephony Denial of Service or TDoS attack involves an attempt to make a telephone system occupied out-of-order to the customers by stopping incoming and outgoing calls. This is attained when the criminal successfully uses up all existing telephone resources to have no available telephone line. It works very much like a distributed-denial-of-service attack in which a web service is overwhelmed with too many spam requests or enquiries. DDoS attacks are not uncommon in banks, insurance companies, credit companies, and emergency service providers. The hackers usually charge a lump sum amount to stop the attack.

Some firewalls are designed mainly for VoIP connections that can sieve and redirect incoming calls. A typical DDoS attack is carried out from one or two particular IP addresses. The firewall blocks call from that IP. Best-in-class and licensed firewall protections shield a financial services call center.

Controlling misuse of sensitive information

Call centers work with customers from all over the globe and their details are also available. Financial service companies have more sensitive information like payment details, credit card numbers, and bank details, also available with the call center partner. Hence, it is crucial to outsourcing to a company that takes necessary actions and leverage tools to secure such data. Cyber attackers use the internet, insecure servers, or even in-house employees to leak and misuse customer-sensitive data.

The only way to prevent data theft is by having a robust set of security practices. Using encryption connections over all the communication channels, secured servers and VPNs, password protections, and captcha protections can keep data secure. A reputed financial services call center should avoid sharing or disclosing customer details to unauthorized persons in the company.

Abiding by Do-Not-Call Registration law

While it is not a direct cyberattack, violation of do-not-call registration by financial companies or outsourced agents can end up with hefty penalties and fines. The do-not-call or do-not-disturb list facilitates callers by stopping unwanted sales calls. A Do-not-call user has the right to file a case against the financial firm or call center for infringement. Every year, the FTC collects millions of dollars in the form of penalties and paychecks.

Choose a financial services call center with a subscription to the white list of FTC or CMA, or Information Commissioner. Many customer relationship management firms provide this service, and some hosted BPO solutions cover it under a package. If you want to do it yourself, you should update the registry weekly to verify all the latest additions.

It is of extreme significance to any organization in the financial sector that uses voice or internet-based call center services to implement efficient data protection measures for reducing cyber threats.