Visa teams up with FireEye for threat data sharing

Payments giant Visa has partnered with IT security firm FireEye to combine data and intelligence on threats to payment information and offer the trove for sale to Visa's customers.

The aim is to use the shared cyber security intelligence to help Visa customers uncover vulnerabilities, prepare for attacks and respond more rapidly to threats.

The service is being marketed to retailers and banks issuing Visa-branded debit and credit cards.

Collective knowledge would help merchants prepare and monitor for known threats, many of which have similar attack patterns, the companies said.

Identifying suspicious activity and monitoring malicious attacks would result in fewer stolen accounts, they said.

The product - the Visa and FireEye Community Threat Intelligence (CTI) offering - will be for sale as part of Visa's fraud risk service.

It will be web based, an approach Visa claimed was a "significant improvement" over current industry practices, in which threat intelligence is shared through email or static documents..

“The threat environment for merchants is more hostile than we’ve ever seen - attack groups focused exclusively on stealing consumer data are continuously expanding their operations and employing new techniques – and it’s a daunting prospect for any merchant whose business could collapse if they lose customer trust,” FireEye CEO David DeWalt said in a statement.

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