Cloud Security and Compliance: The Ultimate Frenemies of the Financial World

Meeting and maintaining the compliance norms of a financial services company can be a challenging and tedious task. It is also time-consuming and expensive at the same time. As the threats in the finance world are increasing, it is expected that the companies will also increase their cybersecurity budget in the year 2022. However just at it is mentioned above, cloud security and compliance share a frenemy relationship.

Even though compliance regulations exist and they can be a bit of bother at times, they do have their plus points, especially in the long run. Even beyond the normal operating requirements, adopting compliance standards helps meet the financial services gain customer trust in the long run (probably of utmost importance for a financial services firm), and protects against reputational damage.

Nonetheless, here the problem is beyond the normal realm of only protecting the data, it is not a one-and-done job. Cloud security protocols constantly keep on changing.  On the other hand, there are new levels of threats intruding into the cyber world every day.

Online financial security threats continue to center around the 3 main areas, and they are-

• Data Breaches-

They can be from internal or external sources which result in the stealing of information from millions of accounts and exposure to sensitive and important data. Every day the destructive threats and ransomware attacks are increasing as cyber criminals are searching for new ways to use vicious tactics to take out information.

• Account Hijacking-

Suspicious hackers launch an infinite amount of attacks which include the denial of services and ransomware.

With cyber threats being a part and parcel of the financial services domain, meeting cloud security and compliance has to be an intrinsic part of protecting financial services data.

There are times when customers unknowingly create data breaches by clicking on links that they do not know. This type an unknown security breach can be avoided by installing an SSL certificate, especially when you are about to do any kind of financial transaction.

It is most commonly used on e-commerce sites and finance sites, where users are required to submit their credit card numbers, bank account details, or any other personal information.

SSL which is the short form for Secure Socket Layer is used to communicate to the web users that the link they are accessing is safe and secure. When a website that has the SSL certificate installed, a padlock icon appears on the extreme left of the URL signifying that the website link is secure.

However here the stakes are much higher as the problem of cyber-attacks in the financial domain is much bigger. Having a secured encryption certificate is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many measures to be taken beyond only installing security certificates.

How can financial services companies manage Cloud Compliance and Security, at the same time effectively managing the rapid rate of innovative technologies being introduced every single day?

• Automation of Security Operations-

In case of a data breach, organizations need to act swiftly without wasting time. It can effectively mitigate the risk of cyber security in financial services. There are several challenges in managing security operations manually. It is time-consuming, highly prone to human error, and also has a high possibility of ineffective and lack of communication between the operations and security teams.

Providing automated security processes in financial services can help detect suspicious activity even before it is carried out by cyber criminals. Also with automation security data protection compliance rules can be carried out in a single process rather than several different processes which are time-saving.

• Streamlining the organization’s culture by sharing the content-

In financial organizations, several teams operate on multiple level platforms. Chances are there are bound to create misinformation breakdowns and data lapses. In such a scenario implementing a simplified reporting formation can be an easy process for information know-how without any kind of lapses in compliance among the employees. Establishing an SSL certificate will also get the job done as it can be used on multiple level platforms; however one needs to check the terms and conditions as some of them are on a per-server basis.

There has to be a robust security platform in the financial services wherein the team can take up responsibility for their security and equip the teams about the violation and the necessary remedial steps to be taken.

• Having a system of 24/7 continuous monitoring-

The mechanism of cloud environments is continuously changing and change seems to be the only constant in this multitude of cloud environments. The key point to notice here is that there is practically no limit as to what level these changes can occur. Lawmakers are implementing these changes across the globe with updated rules to address any kinds of vulnerabilities.

In the case of the financial services sector, this is even more important as there is a direct connection to money. Assessing real-time data is all the more crucial to staying compliant with the rules in this industry at every stage of development. This particularly helps during any kinds of audits in the organizations which can take place and at the same time, it can be seen that your organization is taking a foresighted approach in maintaining compliance standards.

Financial companies need to adopt Cloud compliance management as an asset in the long run though it may seem a mind-numbing task in the beginning. They need to understand and at the same time embrace the demand that cloud compliance is an intrinsic part of the protection of data and crucial customer information, especially for the financial discipline.

Final Take:

Taking the required steps accordingly is another crucial way to thrive in a world where the cloud is the need of the hour. Continuous focus on innovation, along with the safety of information is what needs to be adopted along with the swift level of automation which will accelerate the best automation practices and transform the culture of the organization by upgrading the organization’s compliance strategy.