How Test Automation Helps Shield the Payment Industry from Cyber Threats

As transaction volumes continue to soar, it is easy to see how digital payments have become the lifeblood of the global economy. Unfortunately, this explosive growth has set off an unprecedented barrage of cyber threats that have the entire payment industry under siege. From sophisticated ransomware attacks to widespread data breaches and crippling DDoS assaults, it seems that the probability of an attack on any individual organization has gone from “if" to "when”.

Research published by The World Economic Forum highlights what an attractive target financial services have become for cybercriminals, with the sector suffering more than 20,000 cyberattacks over the past 20 years, at a cost of more than $12 billion. So the stakes have never been higher, and every payment industry participant must put ensuring the safety and security of the payment system, protecting the customer trust, and defending its brand reputation at the very core of its business strategy. 

Complicating an already complex problem is an interconnected and interdependent state of our financial systems, as so painfully demonstrated by the 2024 CrowdStrike outage. This connectivity and dependency create a fertile environment for cybercrooks who leverage advanced technologies like AI and social engineering to exploit any minor vulnerability to launch targeted and adaptive attacks. This necessitates a radical shift from reactive defense to proactive cyber resilience, and at the heart of this shift lies modern testing automation. 
More recent incidents further underscore the urgent need for the entire payments sector to review, revamp, and reinforce its overall approach to cybersecurity. 

The Escalating Threat Landscape 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that a severe cyberattack on a major financial institution could undermine consumer confidence in the entire financial system, potentially triggering systemic risks. This highlights how important it is for all financial services companies to develop and implement a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. 

Cyber threats are not just increasing in frequency but also in sophistication. According to a PYMNTS Intelligence Report, 82% of large merchants experienced data and cyber breaches over the past year, leading to significant revenue losses and customer churn. The financial sector, with its vast reserves of sensitive data and critical infrastructure, is particularly susceptible to such attacks. 

Adyen is a multi-billion dollar Dutch fintech who provides end-to-end payments capabilities and related financial products to clients across the globe. Starting operations in 2006, Adyen is a relatively new company that says that they “follow the highest security standards and implement multiple layers of protection through key security features such as end-to-end encryption, tokenization, and real-time monitoring. But that did not stop hackers from bringing the company to its knees for 8 hours in April 2025 with a targeted Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDoS). 

The increasing complexity of our financial systems means that third-party cyber risk also continues to grow, with data breaches involving vendors doubling in 2024, further exposing a fundamental weakness of interconnected and co-dependent business operations. This reality is driving organizations to aggressively embrace and adopt AI-powered monitoring tools to help with real-time threat detection and prevention. Curiously, this trend highlights the dual role that AI now plays in cybersecurity as both an essential defense tool for payment companies and a powerful and sophisticated weapon for cybercriminals. 

The High Cost of Downtime 

Cyberattacks often result in significant downtime that can cripple business operations. According to a recent research study commissioned by Big Panda, the average cost of unplanned downtime for a large financial services company now exceeds $23,750 per minute or more than $1.4 million per hour, excluding potential fines and reputational damage.  

These numbers mean that the recent 8-hour outage at Adyen could have cost the company more than 11 million dollars, before adding in the additional cost of the negative customer experiences, and the impact on market perception, brand reputation, and investor confidence. 

How Testing Automation Improves Cyber Readiness 

A core benefit of automation is speed, especially when an immediate response to a cyberthreat can mean the difference between containment and catastrophe. Testing automation helps ensure that payment system testing meets the need for speed required by InfoSec and fraud management teams, enabling payment businesses to: 

• Expand test coverage to detect and remediate vulnerabilities before they are exploited
• Rapidly test and validate the accuracy of configuration changes and security patches
• Run and re-run test scenarios across multiple use cases with speed and consistency 
  

Modern testing platforms like Paragon’s VirtualATM and Web FASTest enable these additional capabilities by allowing institutions to simulate threat conditions and test responses without taking mission-critical systems offline. 

Key Elements of an Effective Cybersecurity Strategy 

With the safety and security of the entire global payment system at stake, all industry participants must develop a modern cybersecurity strategy that includes: 

Automated tools validate application and infrastructure integrity 24/7. This allows teams to catch and resolve issues long before they result in an incident. 

MFA significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access, even when credentials are compromised. 

3.  Role-Based Access and Privileged User Controls 
Segmenting user access limits exposure in the event of a breach. Automation ensures these controls are consistently enforced. 

4.  Employee Training and Social Engineering Simulations 
Cybersecurity is a human challenge as much as a technical one. Regular phishing simulations and cybersecurity awareness campaigns are key. 

5.  Incident Response Planning and Drills 
A proactive response plan, coupled with automated testing of recovery procedures, reduces the impact of inevitable threats. 

Automation is a Force Multiplier 

Testing automation complements and enhances manual testing efforts, enabling more tests to be run more quickly, freeing up resources to focus on the highest priority tasks, including cybersecurity and fraud prevention. The increased velocity and frequency of testing provide key benefits such as: 

• Improved product quality and security
• Shorter incident response and remediation timelines
• Enhanced system reliability and availability 
  

In today’s sophisticated operational environments, where development, operations, and security (DevSecOps) must operate in unison, automated testing helps ensure that security is not an afterthought but a built-in safeguard. 

Building Future-Ready Defenses 

As the payment industry has increasingly expanded its digital footprint to satisfy the demands of ever more sophisticated consumers, it has become the target for ever more sophisticated cybercriminals who indiscriminately disrupt legitimate business operations, eroding customer trust and inflicting substantial financial losses. 

Daily reports of cybersecurity threats, incidents and outages serve as a constant reminder of how interconnected, co-dependent, and vulnerable the global payments ecosystem has become. As threats evolve, so must defenses. Financial institutions need to think beyond compliance checklists and instead build adaptable, test-driven security frameworks. 

By integrating testing automation into a robust cybersecurity strategy, the payments industry can: 

• Detect and address vulnerabilities earlier 
• Increase system reliability and minimize the risk of downtime 
• Bolster stakeholder and consumer confidence 
• Comply with tightening global regulations 
  

Need help building testing automation into your cybersecurity strategy? The Paragon team is here to help. Please reach out today.