Data Protection and Security Controls are technological and procedural measures designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of AML-critical data. By encrypting sensitive information, enforcing strict access controls, securing storage solutions, and conducting periodic security audits, financial institutions ensure only authorized personnel can handle or modify AML data. This safeguards critical information from breaches, tampering, or unauthorized disclosure, thereby supporting accurate transaction monitoring, due diligence, and investigations. Through these controls, institutions maintain data reliability, strengthen AML/CFT efforts, and uphold compliance obligations, reducing opportunities for criminals to exploit compromised or manipulated information.
Data Protection and Security Controls
Client Lifecycle Stages
Protecting confidential data is relevant from the very beginning (setting up systems) to final record destruction. Realistically, it never “turns off.”
Mitigated Techniques
Fortify the system architecture with encryption, robust access controls, and version-control mechanisms that track all document edits. Regular vulnerability and penetration testing should ensure that criminals cannot manipulate or destroy sensitive records without raising immediate alerts.
Implement layered data security solutions, including encryption at rest and in transit, intrusion detection/prevention, and disciplined patch management, to defend against malware or unauthorized access that can corrupt financial records. Ensure secure, regularly tested backups that remain inaccessible to routine users, mitigating the risk of wholesale data erasure or tampering.
Implement mandatory patch management policies and conduct regular security assessments to close exploitable gaps in core banking systems. Encrypt sensitive data and maintain secure network configurations to prevent manipulation of transaction logs or the override of AML triggers. These controls reduce the risk of criminals exploiting unpatched software vulnerabilities or misconfigurations to bypass monitoring frameworks.
Deploy advanced malware prevention and system monitoring to block cryptojacking scripts, monitor for unauthorized compute resource spikes, and address IT vulnerabilities that could enable illicit mining operations.