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Fair Digital Finance Evaluation Framework Fair Digital Finance Evaluation Framework
Fair Digital Finance Evaluation Framework

Principle 1: Safety

Digital finance products are secure and minimize risks.

 

  • Subprinciple: Fund Protection
    • Customers’ funds are kept secure via multiple overlapping methods.
    • Users can easily find and understand disclosures of funds’ protection.
    • Company clearly discloses if and how customer funds are insured.
    • Users’ funds are returned if the company goes out of business.
    • Users can withdraw all of their funds without penalty or delay if the business is acquired or sold.
  • Subprinciple: Fraud Protection
    • Company protects users against fraud and scams.
    • Company commits in legally binding documentation to actively monitor their service for fake accounts or accounts that engage in fraudulent behavior.
    • Company commits in legally binding documentation to monitor transactions and activities in real-time to detect suspicious activity.
    • Company defines a process in legally binding documentation to notify users via an out-of-band medium when suspicious activity is detected.
    • Company has appropriate escalation paths to handle suspicious activity.
    • Company provides an easy procedure for user to verify activity and un-freeze account.
    • Company creates and prominently links to documentation or help pages to inform and educates users about potential scams, and scams that have been identified in the past.
    • When a user sends money from their account via the service, the user can verify and confirm the identity of the recipient before initiating the transfer.
    • If a user loses assets due to data breach, fraud, scam, or identity theft, the company has a clearly defined process to support the user in recovering their lost or stolen assets.
  • Subprinciple: Security Practices
    • The product has an authentication system that corresponds to the sensitivity of the user data it manages.
    • The product has an authentication system for accessing accounts.
    • The user must authenticate each time they want to use the product.
    • The product or service times out.
    • The authentication system requires at least two pieces of information to authenticate users.
    • For products or services that handle sufficiently sensitive data or provide access to funds, customers must opt-out of multi-factor authentication.
    • If the product uses a password/passphrase for authentication, it requires that passwords be reasonably complex.
    • If the product uses a password/passphrase for authentication, it is compatible with popular password managers.
    • A product that has an authentication system resists attempts to break it.
    • The product notifies users when account security settings have changed.
    • To change a password/passphrase/pin, a user must enter the previous password/passphrase/pin, or have access to a secondary system that is used to reset it.
    • If the product has an authentication system, it also has a system to prevent brute-force/dictionary attacks
    • Financial data and personally identifiable Information is encrypted so that it can’t be easily read or used by attackers.
    • User data, information and communications are encrypted by default using modern standard methods when at rest
    • User data, information and communications are encrypted by default using modern standard methods when in transit.
    • End-to-end encryption is enabled by default.
    • The product is protected from known software vulnerabilities that present a danger from attackers.
    • The software is secure against known bugs and types of attacks.
    • The company is a responsible caretaker of my data.
    • The company has systems in place to limit and monitor employee access to user information.
    • The company has an internal security team that conducts security audits on the company’s products and services.
    • The company commissions third-party security audits on its products and services.
    • The company ensures that third-parties who process data on behalf of the company implement the required technical and organizational measures to protect user data.
    • The product is kept protected with software updates for a clearly defined and communicated period of time (i.e., the product life cycle).
    • Software can be kept up-to-date for security issues.
    • The company is willing and able to address reports of vulnerabilities.
    • The company has a mechanism (ex: a bug bounty program or a security.txt file) through which security researchers can submit vulnerabilities they discover.
    • The company discloses the timeframe in which it will review reports of vulnerabilities.
    • The company commits not to pursue legal action against security researchers.