Automation can solve the cybersecurity challenge in the financial services sector

No industry is immune to cyber security risks. But the risks to the financial services sector have always been greater as compared to other industries. The pandemic has only amplified the risks.  

The financial industry is also undergoing a bunch of transformation with open banking, the API economy, increasing digital transactions, etc. It is time to rethink the security posture of the financial services. To what extent automation of Cybersecurity can help in this context?   

In a panel discussion during the Aujas Cyber Defense Centre (CDC) launch in Mumbai, on the theme of ‘Will Automation solve the cybersecurity challenge?’ moderated by Anil Chopra, VP-Research & Consulting, Cybermedia Research, Durga Dube- Global CISO, Reliance Industries, Sameer Ratolikar – EVP & CISO, HDFC Bank, Shiv Kumar Bhasin – CTO & COO, NSE, and Sameer Shelke, CEO & Co-Founder, Aujas spoke on the cyber security trends and the pandemic-induced risks in detail, and how financial services companies can protect themselves from such risks.  

How has the risk outlook for the financial services cos changed during COVID?

Sameer Ratolikar, EVP & CISO, HDFC Bank said, “Securing Work from Home applications became, protecting the customers from malicious attacks, and managing the risks in the cloud became extremely crucial during the sudden shift to Work from Home.”  

“Regulatory adherence and compliance became a complex thing during the period as well as managing the risks the banks came across when dealing with third-party vendors,”  said Durga Dube, Global CISO, Reliance Industries. 

How can organizations use automation to protect themselves in this new threat landscape? 

Traditional measures are not enough in this context. Skills availability in the cybersecurity space are also limited. Hence, to manage risks effectively in this ever-growing threat landscape organizations need tools that can offer the scale and accuracy to deal with the attacks proactively.  

Shiv Kumar Bhasin, CTO & COO, NSE said, “Even if you have well-staffed SOC, it is very difficult to reduce the latency in detecting and mitigating any attacks in your digital environment without automation. It helps in device and password management, filtering unauthorized access too.”  

“Besides incident response management, automation is equally important for vulnerability management, password management, third-party risk management as well,” adds Sameer Ratolikar, EVP & CISO, HDFC Bank.  

“But automation alone is not enough to solve a cybersecurity issue. It has to be a well-orchestrated and well-coordinated effort,” cautioned Durga Dube, Global CISO, Reliance Industries.  

“We should not look at automation as just another tool for solving the security issues. Humans and machines need to work together to make automation successful. While machines are great for accomplishing repetitive and accomplishing complex tasks, humans are great at contextual and creative thinking, and thus great for incident response and proactive security management,” advised Sameer Shelke, CEO & Co-Founder, Aujas Cybersecurity.