Strengthening Operational Resilience in Banking through IoT

The customer is a specialist bank based in the UK. While it does not have the risk profile of a Tier 1 bank, it processes large volumes of personal and financial data, making it a potential target for cybercriminals. The bank operates across a hybrid environment, including legacy on-premises infrastructure and an increasing number of workloads in the Amazon Web Services cloud. It recently launched an online banking portal. The bank has a small in-house security team and was previously using SIEM technology for threat detection. However, it was struggling with a high volume of false positive alarms and needed a managed security partner to help it swiftly identify and mitigate cyber threats both inside and outside of regular working hours.

A specialist bank identified that its security controls were not adequately addressing the potential cyber security threats it faced. Despite not having the risk profile of a Tier 1 bank, the bank was aware of its vulnerability to cybercriminals due to the large volumes of personal and financial data it processes. The risks were further increased because the bank operates across a hybrid environment encompassing legacy on-premises infrastructure and an increasing number of workloads in the Amazon Web Services cloud – including a recently launched online banking portal. The bank was experiencing a growing number of attacks and was worried about the consequences of breaches going undetected. The bank's existing SIEM technology was not providing complete threat visibility and investigating a high volume of false positive alarms was proving too time and resources intensive for the organisation’s small in-house security team. The bank needed a managed security partner that could help it swiftly identify and mitigate cyber threats both inside and outside of regular working hours, as well as help meet the requirements of the GDPR, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.

The bank’s Head of Cyber Security led a rigorous tender process to identify the best partner and service for its needs. Redscan stood out as offering the turnkey security capability, offensive security expertise, and proactive approach the organisation needed to level up its security maturity and respond to a continually evolving threat landscape. The bank recognised that Redscan’s outcome-focused Managed Detection and Response service, offered the people, technology and intelligence it required to swiftly identify and respond to current and emerging cyber threats. Redscan’s Security Operations Centre (SOC) professionals operate as a virtual extension of the bank’s IT team, analysing and triaging alerts generated by the service’s underlying technology stack and providing the actionable insight and mitigation guidance it needs to respond to incidents whenever they occur. Since subscribing to the service, the organisation has significantly reduced its mean time to detect and mean time to respond to threats.

• The bank's operational resilience has been enhanced due to greater visibility across its environment and the assurance that it has the people, technology and intelligence in place to help detect and respond to security incidents, 24/7. The bank was able to quickly level up its security maturity in just a matter of weeks. With Redscan analysing and investigating security alerts and only passing on information about genuine threats, the bank’s small in-house security team is now able to focus on incident response and other aspects of cyber security management. The bank is now able to act quickly and effectively in the event of attacks occurring, thanks to high-quality incident information and actionable mitigation guidance from Redscan’s SOC team. The bank's compliance reporting has also improved, helping to enhance situational awareness amongst key business stakeholders and streamline the process of providing evidence of compliance with the GDPR, plus FCA and PRA requirements. The bank's vulnerability management has also become more effective, with the technology platform integrating with the bank’s chosen vulnerability management solution to help enhance security monitoring and ensure that at risk systems are continually hardened.

• Significantly reduced mean time to detect threats

• Significantly reduced mean time to respond to threats

• Rated Redscan 9/10 for speed of response to security incidents