Rakuten Securities Hong Kong and Rakuten Securities Japan are planning to step up the security of their webpages and trading apps.

The Hong Kong broker has announced its plans to disable “TLS1.0” and “TLS1.1” for accessing Rakuten Securities HK webpages and apps starting from May 8, 2021. Only “TLS1.2” or above level will be allowed for accessing Rakuten Securities HK webpages and apps.

The change is necessary due to internet security’s concern, the brokerage explains.

The disablement of the older protocols will affect:

• Webpages of Rakuten securities HK (Desktop and Mobile)
• MARKETSPEED FX app (Desktop)
• iSPEED FX app (Mobile)

Starting from May 8, 2021, those clients of the broker who use “TLS1.0” or “TLS1.1” to access to Rakuten Securities HK Webpages and apps, will not be allowed access. If traders are using the latest version of Internet browsers with an up-to-date security patch, there will be no impact.

Rakuten Securities Japan will also disable these protocols from May 8, 2021. The Japanese broker explains that security vulnerabilities have been reported in some versions of “TLS”, including “TLS1.0” and “TLS1.1”.

TLS 1.0 is a security protocol first defined in 1999 for establishing encryption channels over computer networks. Microsoft has supported this protocol since Windows XP/Server 2003. While no longer the default security protocol in use by modern operating systems, TLS 1.0 is still supported for backwards compatibility.