Enhancing Fintech Security with Site-to-Site VPN

I was hired by a fintech company that specializes in remittances from the United States to Latin America to enhance the security of their transactions. To comply with the Mexican bank's security requirements, I had to establish a more secure, VPN-based communication system by connecting their system hosted on AWS to the Mexican financial institution's proprietary servers.



To achieve this, I deployed an AWS Transit Gateway as a network transit hub, enabling the interconnection of their VPCs and on-premises networks via the VPN. I also modified the routing tables to ensure that all traffic between the client's services and the Mexican bank was directed through the VPN, ensuring secure and private data flow.



The Mexican institution utilized Fortinet security appliances, known for robust firewall and VPN capabilities. I verified and configured the VPN settings to ensure compatibility between AWS's VPN solutions and Fortinet's technology. I also established and configured the necessary VPN tunnels to facilitate a secure communication pathway, ensuring that the data transmitted through the VPN was encrypted at transit, enhancing security beyond the SSL certificates previously used.



To ensure that everything was working correctly, I conducted initial tests in a controlled test environment to troubleshoot and refine the configuration without impacting the production systems. Once the test phase was successfully validated, I replicated the setup in the production environment.



Finally, I implemented monitoring tools to observe the stability and performance of the VPN connection, ensuring optimal operation and quickly addressing any issues. The project was completed in approximately one month, and the result was a stable and secure VPN connection between the client and the Mexican financial institution, which complied with the increased security demands and provided a foundation for future scalability and enhanced data privacy.