Spirent Communications, a global specialst in providing test and assurance solutions for next-generation devices and networks, has announced a partnership with an online payments platform to enhance its cyber defenses. The global merchant acquirer banking has embraced Spirent's CyberFlood software to evaluate the performance, scalability, and efficacy of its network defenses.

The acquirer bank, which facilities thousands of e-commerce, mobile and point-of-sale (POS) payments internationally each day, consulted APNT Network Technology, an Elite partner of Spirent, to heighten its cyber defenses. Given the critical nature of the bank's operations, it needs to introduce real-world application and threat traffic generation into its testing regime to sufficiently test its firewall functionality and fully comprehend how effective its defenses are and their impact on customer experience.

"The financial technology platform of the merchant bank is responsible for numerous daily transactions, making its advanced firewalls instrumental in safeguarding it and its customers. Given the crucial part field performance plays in its operations, they acknowledged the necessity for augmented flexibility to test firewall functionality with realistic traffic generation,” stated Remco Poortvliet, CTO at APNT.

The bank initially employed generic software to create data traffic but later acknowledged the need for a more sophisticated method to handle the increasingly intricate traffic patterns and regular emergence of new security threats. Therefore, they chose Spirent's CyberFlood due to its adaptability, ease of use and capability to generate hyper-realistic application traffic.

"Organisations that handle our online and in-person payments over the internet play a vital role in our daily lives. Hence, it's crucial for the businesses, particularly financial service organisations, to regularly test their cyber defenses to ensure they perform reliably and efficiently and, at the same time, maintaining compliance,” said Douglas Rankin, VP for the EMEA region at Spirent.

CyberFlood can generate specific traffic patterns and threats, sourced from a regularly updated database of threats to evaluate network defenses for potential weakness, allowing businesses to make necessary changes before any issues affect their customers. CyberFlood also takes note of any identified issues, an additional advantage when it comes to assurance, financial planning, and regulatory compliance.

“Given privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe that enforces organisations to demonstrate that they've taken every precautionary measure to prevent threats like data leaks, CyberFlood becomes a potent tool that tests and validates their defenses under real-world conditions within controlled lab environments, ” said Poortvliet.

This agreement between Spirent and the payment platform follows Spirent's November 2023 announcement about their collaboration with a global retail and investment bank to create, install, and configure a novel testing infrastructure to automate its network of testing laboratories.