Financial Services Companies ‘Bank on Assured’ for Data Protection and Recovery

When we make a deposit with a bank or credit union, we expect our money to be safe and secure. We can also say the same about our personal and financial data. Financial Services organizations handle massive volumes of digital transactions and sensitive data tied to customer accounts. Faced with the risk of cybercrime and ransomware attacks, power failures and natural disasters, how do these organizations insure our personal details against the risk of data theft and data loss? The answer lies in a managed services approach to data management that is regulatory compliant, leaves an audit trail, and recovers sensitive data. This ensures peace of mind for the bank, the customers, and the IT team responsible for data governance.

Financial Services companies are among the biggest targets for cyber criminals, intent on stealing customer data they can exploit or hold for ransom. Their attention isn’t solely focused on national and international banks either, they’re actively targeting regional US banks and credit unions. Last year, Patelco, a not-for-profit credit union, was hit by a ransomware attack that put it out of action for two weeks. The financial and reputational damage from the downtime alone was bad enough, but it’s estimated that the attackers stole data of up to one million customers and employees. A devastating scenario for any Financial Services organization. On top of this, Patelco was fined $100,000 by California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) for failing to comply with state cybersecurity requirements.

Bracing for Impact 

Patelco is a reminder to Financial Services organizations that the threat of a ransomware attack never diminishes and could happen at any time. It emphasizes the need for robust defenses that can neutralize an attack and mitigate its impact. But cybersecurity is only one side of the cyber resilience coin, the other is having immutable backups in place to recover critical data and digital assets almost immediately. This has a positive ripple effect; it means your data and assets, including public facing websites and digital banking apps, can be up and running, restoring confidence in customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders. It also ensures minimal disruption to digital infrastructure, systems, and databases, as everything is replicated to a secure second site. 

With data encrypted and systems intact, you can begin to unpack the situation using forensic analysis techniques that allow you to pinpoint the root cause of the attack and learn the extent of the damage. This assessment period is crucial, because once you’ve isolated the corrupt or potentially missing data, you can determine your recovery time objective (RTO) to the point when data will be fully restored. This enables you to manage the recovery process effectively, ensure business continuity, and keep stakeholders informed. 

Deploying Rubrik as a Service 

Rubrik’s ability to simplify and automate data recovery and retrieval processes at scale, across multiple environments, while integrating data security and root cause analysis, is widely recognized in the financial services sector. A common challenge though is successfully migrating from legacy backup and disaster recovery (DR) solutions to Rubrik’s cybersecurity platform. For regional banks and credit unions throughout the US, this can be due to perceived cost barriers or a lack of in-house expertise. In some cases, they may have already adopted a similar solution, but they’re not getting the right level of support they need, or the solution isn’t living up to expectations and they’re looking to switch. That’s where Assured Data Protection comes in. 

By adopting a managed services approach, regional banks and credit unions can operationalize Rubrik to ensure ROI and maximize its features to support cyber resilience, backup, and DR. At Assured, the Rubrik platform is managed by a dedicated 24/7/365 support team. This means rollout is much faster and more extensive. Organizations also get access to backup and DR specialists who can be consulted on the complexities of data security, protection, and recovery as they scale.

The economic model also suits budget conscious Financial Services organizations. They can expand their team and infrastructure overnight, without any CapEx investment. This includes access to a secure second site located at one of Assured’s data centers. The level of support can easily be adjusted to suit requirements, helping organizations to accelerate their cloud migration and digital transformation. They can be safe in the knowledge that backup and DR are covered. 

Operational Resilience and Compliance 

Another compelling reason why a fully-managed Rubrik solution is appealing to banks and credit unions is because it allows them to comply with regulations and meet audit requirements. IT and cybersecurity risk management, data governance, and incident disclosure are high on the agenda of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory bodies. In the US, credit unions in particular are bound by rules and regulations set by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which has very specific guidelines for IT Security Compliance. The NCUA also stipulates that credit unions have “contingency plans” in place in the form of comprehensive backup and DR policies and facilities. Fortunately, Rubrik covers many of these stipulations, specifically in relation to the provision of a next generation platform solution with immutability and off-site backups that are sufficiently air-gapped to protect data from cyberattacks, large scale system failures, fires, or floods. 

From a data protection and data privacy perspective, Rubrik adoption also helps simplify compliance with PCI DSS security standards, ensuring that payment data and personal information is stored and processed correctly. It also allows organizations to easily locate and retrieve PCI DSS data in line with audit requirements. 

Having a managed backup and DR solution in place that meets with compliance is fundamental to IT and cybersecurity risk management in a highly regulated industry and is a must have for Financial Services organizations. In particular, regional banks and credit unions may not have the IT resources available to larger banks and financial institutions. This solution provides them with a system designed to address the constantly evolving threat landscape, helping them recover from the initial impact of an attack and equipping them with the tools and strategies needed to minimize downtime, maintain operations, and achieve RTO.