As an individual in the age of digital transformation, chances are good that your life has been shaped or changed dramatically by the pace of technology innovation over the past 20 years – resulting perhaps in a mild case of technology whiplash.
Coinciding with this phenomenon is the fact that urbanization is on the rise around the globe. According to the United Nations, 54 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a percentage expected to reach 66 percent by 2050.This “mega-cities” trend is in part due to digital transformations which are changing economies, cultures and communities at light speed. Unprecedented connectivity, mobility and access to information are fundamentally changing how individuals, organizations and communities view their own safety, security and quality of life.
The upside to this innovation? Tremendous new capabilities that allow people to stay connected, make purchases, conduct business transactions and access information with a level of convenience undreamt of just a short time ago.
The downside: A growing rate of fraud, theft, cyber attacks and other forms of criminal and nefarious activity.
Identifying potential vulnerabilities, risks and opportunities amid this complexity is a challenge that Thales is helping customers meet head-on. Our solutions provide security professionals, military commanders and metropolitan leaders with real-time data from multiple sources – and the analysis required to make decisions that can save lives, prevent crime, protect sensitive information and safeguard communities.
From the protection of critical infrastructure to information in cyberspace, and point-of-sale purchases to international financial transactions, Thales is helping organizations everywhere meet the challenges of a complex digital age.
Securing a Personal Digital Environment
Across the networks that enable different types of personal transactions, there remains the challenge of information integrity and protection, from the point where data is collected down the line to different endpoints and devices. With more platforms used by consumers to make payments, for example, that line stretches further than ever, given options such as smartphone payment apps, roving checkout devices and online payments.
NASDAQ estimates that merchants who sold through mobile channels lost 70 percent more revenue due to fraud in 2014 than in 2013. With Gartner predicting that global mobile transactions will increase by 35 percent until 2017, how can we ensure that the rapid increase in digital payments doesn’t result in a massive increase in risk?
Encryption is part of the answer, but the challenges are numerous. To protect data, first you have to know its vulnerabilities. In a customer study by Thales, 57 percent of respondents said the biggest challenge to utilizing data encryption was locating where sensitive information resides in their own organizations and it turns out that sensitive data can come from just about anywhere.
That is why navigating these issues is complex, making security, innovation and expertise important in choosing a provider.
Thales has been designing payment protection solutions for more than 25 years, and is the number one provider of security for banking transactions worldwide. Thales’ payShield is currently the number one solution worldwide for payment processes meeting or exceeding the requirements of major card issuers, including American Express, Visa, MasterCard and Discover. Thales protects 80 percent of the world’s banking transactions and secures the information systems of more than 3,000 financial institutions worldwide, including 19 of the 20 largest banks. In the U.K alone, Thales safeguards 3.7 billion payment transactions every year – more than 7,000 transactions every minute.