Cybersecurity in Fintech and Financing — A 'Step-by-Step Guide' to Closing All the Doors

If you've followed some of the articles I've published on this topic (like this one, this one — in Portuguese — and that one over there — also in Portuguese —), you'll know I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way and I’d like to think I know enough to lend a helping hand here and there. In the financing and fintech space, cybersecurity is like building a fortress. But, let’s face it, for many companies, the first step is realizing you’re defending a cardboard box, not a fortress. So, where do you start if you’re working in an environment where security is more wishful thinking than reality?

Here’s a no-nonsense, practical roadmap to fixing that, from cleaning up the basics to building a security culture that will make even the sneakiest hackers sweat.

Step 1: Blue Team – Clean House, Close All the Doors

First things first: if you're working in an environment without proper security, your Blue Team needs to roll up their sleeves and do the dirty work. Their mission? Simple: close every door, fix every hole.

We're talking about:

• Patch management: Bring everything up to date.
• Access control: Who’s got the keys to your castle? Make sure they should have them.
• Network hardening: Firewalls, VPNs, encryption — put ‘em all in place.
• User education: Even the most secure system can be undone by someone clicking on a bad link.

Once the Blue Team has swept through, you’ve got the basics in place. The house is cleaned up, doors are locked, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

Step 2: Red Team – Find the Hidden Threats

Now that the house is somewhat in order, it’s time to unleash the Red Team. Their job? Find the problems that aren't obvious.

Even with your Blue Team's best efforts, there are always cracks that no one can see at first glance. This is where your Red Team goes on the offensive. They think like attackers, but work for you. Penetration testing, vulnerability hunting, and social engineering — whatever it takes to reveal the subtle, sneaky issues.

Think of them as the detectives looking for that loose floorboard that might collapse later. Their findings should be used to make the Blue Team even sharper and more efficient.

Step 3: Green Team – Security by Design, Every Time

With your major gaps identified and closed, it's time to change the way you do things. Enter the Green Team.

From this point on, every single thing you deploy — whether it’s a quick bug fix or an entire new product — needs to have security baked in from the beginning.

That’s called Security by Design:

• Code reviews for security: No line of code goes into production without checking for potential vulnerabilities.
• Automated testing: Static and dynamic application testing tools running automatically on every build.
• Secure architectures: Your systems are designed with security in mind from day one, not as an afterthought.

With the Green Team, you're building with security as the foundation, not something to patch up later.

Step 4: Yellow Team – Lock Down the Infrastructure

By now, the code and the practices are more secure, but don’t forget the infrastructure itself. This is where the Yellow Team steps in.

Their role is to ensure that your infrastructure — whether cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid — is locked down, one step at a time. This means:

• Monitoring: Real-time tracking of what’s happening across your network and systems.
• Incident response: An established protocol to handle breaches or suspicious activity.
• Microsegmentation: Breaking down your network into isolated sections to limit any potential damage.

Think of it as installing steel bars on the windows and setting up motion detectors in every room.

Step 5: Orange Team – Test Everything

With infrastructure locked down, it’s time for the Orange Team to take over. Their mission is continuous testing and validation of all the work the previous teams have done. It’s not enough to put systems in place — you need to verify that they’re working.

Orange Team will focus on:

• Regular penetration tests: Don’t assume you're safe. Keep testing.
• Audits and compliance: Are you following all the industry standards and regulations?
• Performance under stress: Does the security hold up even when systems are under heavy load?

Step 6: Purple Team – Collaboration Between Red and Blue

Once you’ve reached a good level of maturity, it’s time to evolve into a Purple Team approach. This is the balance between offense and defense. The Red and Blue Teams stop working in silos and start collaborating to continuously improve.

The Purple Team framework helps streamline your defenses:

• Sharing attack techniques: The Red Team shares new tricks and techniques, while the Blue Team sharpens its defenses.
• Proactive defense: Instead of reacting to attacks, your teams begin to anticipate them.

Step 7: Blue-Green Team – Secure Deployment at Every Step

Finally, you adopt a Blue-Green Team model. This is all about secure, continuous deployment. Every time you roll out an update, a fix, or a new app, security is built in and tested in real time. You can deploy code quickly without ever worrying that you’re leaving the doors unlocked.

The Blue-Green Team method lets you:

• Deploy rapidly: New features or patches go live without sacrificing security.
• Test in production: You have real-time feedback from the live environment, so issues are caught instantly.

But hey... here is the thing: Can all this work be done by a single team? Sure, of course it can — as long as it's not a "one-man army" situation.

The key is to divide the skills properly, so "the coders code," "the defenders defend," and "the attackers attack," and so on. In other words, each person focuses on what they do best so they can do it right. But you know... Security by Design is way bigger than just a "cyber activity." It's really a mindset about how to build solid, well-crafted software from the ground up.

Do all companies in this sector get these steps? Hmm… hard to say. Honestly, some of these companies, from the "height of their wisdom," hire cybersecurity pros and then tell them what to do! I don’t know... to me, that sounds at least stupid.

Wait a minute: you (as a fintech) mess everything up, leave your systems wide open, with your software full of holes like Swiss cheese… and then hire cyber pros just to say, “Do this, do that”? (If you really knew what to do from the start — did you actually know??? — why didn’t you do it right the first time?).

You see the problem? Companies that don’t get things right from the beginning don’t do it because they can’t even tell the difference between “doing it right” and “doing it wrong.”

So, as you can see, turning your cybersecurity from a messy patchwork into a smooth, well-oiled machine isn’t as easy as it might seem. From plugging the initial holes to securing every new line of code and update, you’ve got to shift cybersecurity from being an afterthought to making it part of your company’s DNA. That’s exactly what any fintech or financing business needs to do to not just survive, but thrive in today’s digital world.

But if you don't... OKEY DOKEY... then let me know, 'cause I would be more than happy to 'visit you'... if you know what I mean! 😉