The 2024 FinWise data breach serves as a stark example of the growing insider threats faced by modern financial institutions. Unlike typical cyberattacks originating from external hackers, this incident stemmed from unauthorized access by a former employee using retained credentials.
On May 31, 2024, the ex-employee accessed FinWise Bank’s systems after leaving the company and leaked sensitive personal information belonging to 689,000 customers of American First Finance (AFF). Even more alarming, this unauthorized access went undetected for more than a year before being discovered by the bank on June 18, 2025.
The most troubling aspect of the case lies in the time gap between the initial breach and its discovery. FinWise Bank only became aware of the incident and notified affected customers in June 2025 which was over a year after the breach occurred.
FinWise Data Breach: The Problem
Lawsuits allege that the stolen data may not have been adequately encrypted and secured, causing public criticism and concern.
Security experts emphasize that a well-designed information protection framework must not only encrypt critical financial data but also proactively detect and prevent abnormal access attempts.
FinWise Bank’s failure to implement such basic safeguards, coupled with potentially poor encryption practices, has led the institution to face legal action and heightened scrutiny from regulators and customers alike.
FinWise Data Breach: The Answer
Although FinWise has yet to issue an official statement regarding its encryption practices, the data breach will result in irreversible damage to both the company and its customers.
In incidents like the FinWise breach, encryption serves as the last line of defense for data. However, true data protection goes beyond encryption alone; it also requires key management and access control measures.
If FinWise properly implemented and managed its data encryption systems, the exposure of customers’ personal information could have been prevented even after the breach.
Moreover, effective key management could have lowered the risk of data misuse, safeguarding sensitive information from further exploitation.
Prevent data misuse after cyber attacks.
D.AMO combines encryption, key management, and centeralized control to protect your organization’s most sensitive data.
D.AMO: Securing Database, Data Encryption
In response to data breaches like the one at FinWise, Penta Security’s D.AMO (Encryption Platform) has drawn renewed attention as an effective countermeasure.
More than just a data encryption tool, D.AMO is a comprehensive data security platform that integrates powerful encryption, granular access control, and an independent key management system (KMS).
Launched in 2004 as South Korea’s first packaged encryption solution and a pioneering product among global leaders, D.AMO has since established itself as a trusted name in the industry.
With over 10,000 clients across finance, public, and enterprise sectors, D.AMO’s long-standing experience and proven technology have solidified its position as a leading force in the database encryption market.
How D.AMO Works
D.AMO has established itself as the No. 1 data encryption solution in South Korea’s public sector, recognized for its robust cybersecurity infrastructure and specialized expertise.
Trusted by government institutions and major enterprises alike, it leads the market with unmatched reliability and technological depth.
The platform supports multiple encryption methods, including API-based, plug-in-based, and kernel-level encryption, ensuring flexible deployment across both new implementations and live service environments.
Going further, D.AMO enables selective column-level encryption based on data sensitivity, minimizing performance degradation while maintaining full compatibility across all layers of a customer’s system environment.
In high-traffic sectors such as finance and government, service continuity is critical. D.AMO ensures that search and operational functions remain intact even after encryption, allowing organizations to achieve both operational efficiency and strong data protection.
This balance of performance and security has made us the preferred choice for countless public institutions and large-scale enterprises.
D.AMO KMS
While encryption itself can prevent the misuse of sensitive information in the event of a data breach, effective key management is equally critical. The strength of any data encryption strategy is directly proportional to the security of its key management system.
D.AMO KMS is a dedicated hardware appliance designed to securely manage encryption keys independently from the data they protect.
By separating the privileges of database administrators and security administrators, D.AMO KMS ensures that even those with access to encrypted data cannot access the corresponding keys.
This separation of duties serves as one of the most effective defenses against insider threats, such as the FinWise data breach.
Furthermore, because D.AMO KMS stores keys in a physically and logically isolated appliance, encrypted data remains protected even if a hacker or insider were to gain full access to the database.
Without the decryption keys, the stolen data remains unusable—providing a powerful safeguard against both internal and external breaches.
D.AMO Control Center
D.AMO Control Center enables centralized management and access control for all encryption products deployed across every layer of a customer’s internal server infrastructure.
Through this unified management system, administrators can monitor logs generated by each product and efficiently operate encryption solutions within a single, integrated interface.
Incidents like the FinWise data breach underscore the critical importance of user access privileges in preventing insider threats. D.AMO Control Center addresses this challenge by providing granular privilege management, including user account separation, encryption/decryption permission settings, and data access control.
By enforcing strict role-based access policies, organizations can proactively defend against potential insider misuse and strengthen overall data security governance.
Data Breach Incidents: Prepare And React
The FinWise data breach was not merely a technical incident, but a systemic failure rooted in inadequate security governance and potentially insufficient encryption and centralized management. This case highlights the growing need for financial institutions to adopt robust defense strategies—not only against external attacks, but also against unpredictable insider threats.
Penta Security’s D.AMO provides a comprehensive solution to these challenges. Designed to meet global compliance standards such as PCI-DSS, GDPR, ITSCC, CCPA, and CPRA, D.AMO integrates data encryption (D.AMO), a dedicated key management system (D.AMO KMS), and centralized management (D.AMO Control Center) into a single, unified platform.
Through its advanced audit and logging features, D.AMO detects potential data theft resulting from privilege abuse, and even in cases of internal access, its robust encryption and strict key management render the exposed data useless.
An analysis of the FinWise breach shows that D.AMO directly addresses every vulnerability revealed in the incident. Organizations must shift their approach to data security from reactive response to proactive prevention.
For any institution handling sensitive information, adopting an integrated encryption platform like D.AMO is no longer optional. Data encryption is a critical investment in the future of secure data management.
> Download D.AMO White Paper to Learn More.
Sponsored and written by Penta Security.
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