SOTER has taken a holistic research approach by combining two complementary strands of enquiry to tackle the ever increasingly complex nature of cybersecurity resilience. The first strand of research has focused on developing a State-of-the-Art biometric-based identity and authentication digital onboarding platform for the financial services sector. This tool seeks to increase security, usability, and integrity within the sector by easing the onboarding of customers into the digital marketplace. It combines a suite of novel technologies such as NFC chip reading technologies, Proof-of-Life facial recognition, voice signature template technologies, privacy respecting consent and permissions management, and know your device technologies. Crucially, the product also provides the data subject with a secure and robust method for obtaining digital identity credentials, which they can store in their own blockchain based credential wallet. The platform has also been built according to Privacy-by-Design, Security-by-Design, and Data-Protection-by-Design-and-Default methodologies and will attempt to ensure transparency and accountability across the full design and development lifecycle. SOTER has also adhered to the applicable regulatory frameworks and privacy and data protection principles have been maintained, according to European Commission guidelines, as well as promoting European values.
To complement the technological development, SOTER has engaged with the finance sector to research human factor-based cybersecurity, through social science and humanities-based research. SOTER has sought to further the existing knowledge by combining three complementary strands of research – the first is a combination of desk-based research and an evidence-led qualitative enquiry with both a dedicated end-user and sectoral partners from the fintech community, to see if existing theory and practice are congruent. This strand of the SOTER project has investigated specific aspects of human factor-based cybersecurity, namely incidents, threats and vulnerabilities related to 1) Error, malpractice, and misjudgement 2) Malevolent actors, and 3) Legal and ethical threats. The second strand of research has developed a suite of training materials to be released under open licences, with the goal of increasing cybersecurity resilience across the sector. The developed training materials are based on a comprehensive Cybersecurity Competence Catalogue informed by the industry, that clearly outlines which cybersecurity, information security, and information technology related competences are required by employees of financial services organisations to be cyber-resilient. The overarching goal of the SOTER social sciences based research is to ensure that the finance sector is furthermore protected from ever-increasingly complex threats in regard to the human factor in an ethical and trustful manner, taking into account, not only organisational integrity, but also the individual integrity of all employees involved.
