Peter Cavicchia is Chief Technology Officer at Fiserv, the world's leading payments and financial technology provider. In that role, he leads technology infrastructure strategy and transformation for Fiserv.
That oversight includes protecting the integrity of payment transactions at approximately six million business locations and four thousand financial institutions in over 100 countries.
ABOUT
He previously served in that role at First Data, which merged with Fiserv in July 2019. Prior to joining First Data in 2013, Peter Cavicchia served in senior risk prevention roles at JP Morgan Chase. Joining the company in 2004 as an Assistant Director of Global Security and Investigations during the company’s merger with Bank One, he developed the cyber capabilities of the bank as it expanded its online banking and remote channel products. He also led sensitive internal investigations and helped strengthen the company’s internal deposit controls and compliance monitoring functions.
As Managing Director for Cybersecurity and Investigations (from 2007 to 2010), his role spanned risk intelligence, analytics, vulnerability management, penetration testing and the identification of new technologies to help prevent the loss of sensitive data and intellectual property. He was responsible for designing and installing new measures and controls to prevent exploitation of the company’s online banking and remote channels.
During this uniquely challenging period in banking history he was part of the teams that successfully integrated technology and security with acquired entities and conducted compliance and other investigations in response to internal allegations and government and regulatory inquiries.
While Managing Director of JP Morgan Chase’s newly created Operations Control Management Office (from 2012 to 2013), Mr. Cavicchia worked closely with the legal and compliance department to respond to complex government and regulatory inquiries while continuing to manage the company’s vulnerability management, cyber threat intelligence, and cyber investigations functions.
He worked closely with the CIO of JP Morgan Chase and heads of technology business development to identify emerging security technology and startup companies with disruptive products that were targets for JPM investment or utilization. That included recommending Palantir, the world’s leading provider of big data analytics, to identify potential high-risk individuals, transactions and other bad actors facilitating fraudulent activities to Chase’s customers and institutional systems.
In 2013, he left JP Morgan Chase to join First Data as a Senior Vice President, leading all information security, cyber security operations and enterprise fraud functions.
U.S. Secret Service
From 1998 to 2004, Mr. Cavicchia served as a Special Agent with the United States Secret Service. As an agent with significant training in forensics, cybercrime, and fraud he was charged with investigating highly sophisticated electronic crimes and testifying in federal court as an expert witness. In partnership with other specialized agents, he helped build a multinational network of electronic crime task forces that brought together federal, state, and local agencies with private industry and academic institutions. Based on their history of success these task forces were identified by the U.S. Congress in section 105 of the USA Patriot Act as the model for task forces moving forward. Mr. Cavicchia also holds the US Secret Service’s Medal of Valor and other honors from federal, state, and local agencies.
Early Career
Mr. Cavicchia began his career in 1996 as an investigative agent in the Morris Country, N.J. Prosecutor’s Office, where he served in the High Tech Unit of the Major Crimes division. He specialized in recovering evidence from computers and other electronic devices. He holds a BA in Psychology from Seton Hall University.
Thought Leadership
Mr. Cavicchia participated in the panel discussion, “Keeping Ahead of the Threat” —addressing key threat areas and the security infrastructure surrounding them — at The 2nd annual Summit on Security, presented by Fiserv, November 12-13, 2019 at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
He was interviewed by PYMNTS that same month in the article, Kicking Fraudsters Out Of Online Games. In it, he called for the same layers of defense in gaming that are being used to stop fraud in well-known e-commerce payment channels like trusted devices, step-up authentication and consumer alerting.
Mr. Cavicchia blogs about trends and best practices in cyber security and IT leadership, focusing on topics of interest to CIOs, CTOs, and other IT professionals, as well as anyone concerned with the security of their data.