FinTech
AWS security for FinTech start-ups
FinTech start-ups face bank-grade security expectations with start-up headcount. Partners, payment providers and regulators all want evidence that customer financial data is protected. bearhug gives you continuous AWS security checks, mapped to PCI DSS and SOC 2 controls, without hiring a security team.
What banks and partners will ask about your AWS setup
Before a bank, payment provider or enterprise customer signs with you, their security team will send a questionnaire. For a FinTech on AWS, the questions usually come down to these five.
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Is customer financial data encrypted?
Partners expect encryption at rest for databases, storage and backups, and encryption in transit for every connection.
How bearhug helps: Findings flag unencrypted RDS databases and EBS volumes, and S3 buckets that allow unencrypted connections.
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Who can access production?
Shared admin accounts and old access keys are among the first things a reviewer looks for.
How bearhug helps: IAM findings show users without MFA, unused access keys and policies that grant full administrative access.
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Is activity logged?
Without a record of who did what, an incident cannot be investigated and an audit cannot be passed.
How bearhug helps: bearhug checks that CloudTrail is logging, and one-click Fix can enable it.
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Is anything exposed that should not be?
A public bucket or a database reachable from the internet is the fastest way to lose a partner’s trust.
How bearhug helps: One-click fixes block public access on S3 buckets and close security group rules that are open to the internet.
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Would you know if something went wrong?
Partners want to know that threats are detected and acted on quickly.
How bearhug helps: GuardDuty threat detections reach you as plain-English email alerts as soon as AWS reports them.
PCI DSS and SOC 2 foundations on AWS
If you store, process or transmit card data, PCI DSS applies to the parts of your AWS environment that handle it. If you sell to businesses, a SOC 2 report is often the first thing their procurement team asks for. Both frameworks expect the same AWS basics to be in place: restricted access, encryption, logging, monitoring and a way to show that issues are found and fixed.
bearhug maps its findings to PCI DSS and SOC 2 controls, so you can see which AWS issues affect which framework and fix them before an assessment. Daily trends show your posture improving over time, which is exactly the kind of evidence an assessor or auditor wants to see.
It is a foundation, not a certification. bearhug does not assess the parts of PCI DSS or SOC 2 that sit outside AWS configuration, such as your policies, people and processes.
Protecting customer financial data in S3 and RDS
- Keep S3 buckets private. Turn on Block Public Access at account and bucket level, and use bucket policies that grant access only to the roles that need it. Read more about AWS S3 bucket security.
- Encrypt databases from the start. RDS encryption at rest is set when a database is created. An existing unencrypted database has to be moved to an encrypted copy, so it is far easier to get right on day one.
- Keep databases off the internet. RDS instances holding customer data should not be publicly accessible, and their security groups should allow connections only from your application.
- Use customer managed keys where it matters. AWS KMS keys give you control over who can use a key and a log of every use.
- Log and monitor. CloudTrail records management activity in your account. To keep records of access to individual objects in S3, turn on CloudTrail data events or S3 server access logging. GuardDuty watches for threats such as unusual access to your data.
Evidence for due diligence
Investors, partners and enterprise customers all want to see that security is under control, not just hear it. bearhug gives you a live view of your AWS posture across every account, a history of the issues you have fixed and a mapping to the frameworks they care about.
When the next questionnaire arrives, you can answer from what your AWS account actually looks like today. See how bearhug helps start-ups answer security questions.
Built for small FinTech teams
bearhug is designed for teams without a dedicated security engineer. Findings are explained in plain English, common fixes take one click with rollback, and set-up takes under five minutes with a CloudFormation stack. It costs $100 per AWS account per month, billed through AWS Marketplace, with no long-term commitment.
FinTech questions
No tool does on its own. bearhug finds and fixes the AWS configuration issues that PCI DSS assessments check, and maps findings to PCI DSS controls, but your assessor or acquirer decides whether you are compliant.
Yes, as a foundation. bearhug maps AWS findings to SOC 2 controls and shows your posture improving over time, which is useful evidence for an auditor. It does not replace the audit itself.
No. bearhug works with security settings and findings from your AWS account. It does not read the contents of your databases, files or backups.
bearhug costs $100 per AWS account per month, with every feature included. A FinTech with production, staging and development accounts pays $300 a month, billed through AWS Marketplace.
Get your FinTech’s AWS account audit-ready
14-day free trial. The paid plan is $100 per AWS account per month, billed through AWS Marketplace.
No credit card. No procurement. Starts from your AWS console.