Sales: 0845 470 4001 | Support: 0845 230 6001 | Contact Form | NPS
Categories
Tags
Authors
Teams
Archives
Categories:   All Categories
Suggested keywords
x
Exponential-e
Cloud Culture Data Digital Transformation IT Services Finance

Making sense of the Cloud-buzz: what quick wins are available to establish Business and Security value?

Making-sense-of-the-Cloud-buzz-what-quick-wins-are-available-to-establish-Business-and-Security-value
On Thursday 25th April, Exponential-e held a Financial Services and Insurance roundtable event at 'M Restaurant' in Victoria, London. The event brought together leading figures from these two sectors to share their experience of Cloud adoption and the benefits it can provide to businesses.

The conversation was kicked off by guest speaker Steve Deakin, Head of Development and Operations at Lloyds of London, discussing his experiences of Cloud and the client perspective. Next followed Nick Robinson, Systems Engineering Manager at Palo Alto Networks, who provided a view of real world innovations and shared Cloud success stories that he has seen from his clients across EMEA.

Here is a high level summary and description of the quick wins that were discussed:

The Process:

  • Learn -> Hack -> Iterate


Horizon Scanning & DevOps with an AGILE mind-set

  • Microsites and Micro services that are already trialled, tested and robust from an architecture and security perspective - this enables one to rapidly deploy new products and services, websites etc. with security peace of mind.
  • Serverless - just focus on writing codes and you can make changes in microseconds! It is easy to deploy, low cost, gives you more time to focus on UX and is more efficient for developers by ensuring you are keeping code backed up and in a secure environment.
  • Grid Data Analyst - overcome floods and complexity of big data and unlock the power of analytics with the right data in the right place.


Cybersecurity

  • OWASP Top 10 - whilst the threat landscape remains consistent year on year, everyone should make sure they are aligned to the latest as it evolves. Assuming the top 10 remains unchanged or that changes are incremental such as low priority to action, can lead to vulnerabilities. www.owasp.org
  • NCSC - The National Cyber Security Centre is an organisation of the United Kingdom Government that provides advice and support for the public and private sector on how to avoid computer security threats. www.ncsc.go.uk
  • Ethical Hacking - this should be continuously implemented - leverage Pen testers and vulnerability scanning as much as possible in order to follow best practices and processes - Learn -> Hack -> Iterate.
  • Social Engineering was also discussed, not so much as a quick win due to the complexity (get the simple things right first) however, advised to leverage Pen testers to protect your business from bad actors that use social engineering tactics.
  • Multi Factor Authentication – we discussed how this is a very low hanging and important measure to put in place. Leverage MFA to 1) require individuals to provide two or more authentication factors to confirm their identity for online transactions or to gain access to corporate applications, networks and servers and 2) insight and reports on the user's activity. Identity (IAM) and Privilege Access Management (PAM) were also mentioned as a further way to secure your business.
  • Security Information and Event management (SIEM) - leverage SIEMS as a means to log attacks. An IT Service Provider can provide an important layer of service to proactively manage, monitor and report on what the SIEM is seeing on a 24/7 365 basis.


Cloud Patterns


Data Lakes

  • Building out centralised repository for enterprise data, for tasks such as reporting, visualization, analytics and machine learning - leveraging cloud partners to build out big data solutions.


A debate for another day

  • DevOps and Open Source software is and will continue to be the main target for bad actors, they hold the code (the crown jewels). Should such resources have locked or unlocked internet access? On one hand it offers flexibility and agility, on the other it is more locked down and has a stronger argument from a security perspective.


#Azure #AWS #CloudPatterns #Cybersecurity #OWASP #NCSC #DevOps #HorizonScanning #EthicalHacking #Digital Transformation

Tags:
cloud adoption Finance DevOps cyber security SIEM
  3134 Hits
Darren Boulter
Company Finance Compliance Cyber Security Insurance

Preparing for DORA: What do these new regulations mean for finance and insurance firms?

blog-header-preparing-for-dora
When it comes to insurance and financial services, the ability to offer clients peace of mind is the key to ensuring the sector's continued longevity. Cyberattacks are evolving in frequency and sophistication, with criminals selecting progressively more ambitious targets, and even minor IT outages, whether they're caused by human error or 'acts of God', will have a serious effect on firms' operations, negatively affecting both profitability and brand reputation. With this in mind, firms must reconsider the way they approach operational resilience, particularly regarding the way access rights for critical systems and data are managed.
Tags:
Insurance Finance risk management resilience compliance
  876 Hits
Darren Boulter
Company Finance Insurance

The Hidden Barrier to Digital Transformation that Insurers must be Ready to Overcome

The-Hidden-Barrier-to-Digital-Transformation-that-Insurers-must-be-Ready-to-Overcome

Digital transformation continues to pick up pace across the financial sector. However, in spite of the potential benefits on offer, many insurance firms continue to lag behind their peers in terms of their overall digital maturity. 

Tags:
Digital Transformation Insurance Professional Services automation Training
  546 Hits
Tristin Titinchi
Company Finance Compliance Cyber Security Data Protection

The new breed of seamless, secure cashflow emerges: Ensuring your organisation is prepared for the payments revolution

THE-NE1
We make payments, large and small, every day of our lives. From paying our bills and making payments to friends online, to the large-scale bank transfers that help business flow. Money changes hands through a wider range of channels and platforms than ever before, to the extent the days of cash-in-hand being the default payment model are a fading memory for many of us. The convenience and flexibility can't be disputed, but as with any emerging technology, the new flows of data must be given careful consideration, ensuring businesses and customers alike can rest assured that their money will remain secure throughout every stage of every transaction.
  707 Hits
Our Customers
Company Finance Case Studies Finance

Tandem Money

Tandem-Money-Maximising-performance-scalability-and-compliance-for-a-leading-innovator-in-online-banking

Maximising performance, scalability, and compliance for a leading innovator in online banking

About Tandem Money

Tandem is 'The Good Green Bank', a fully regulated digital app‐based bank founded on the idea of putting customers' needs first whilst helping them save more than just their money by pushing for a sustainable future. The acquisition of green lender Allium in 2020, an established green homes lender, accelerated Tandem's mission into the green space. Tandem offers savings, mortgages, and loans to help customers green their properties, and eventually their lives.

Challenges

The key driver behind Tandem's ongoing digital transformation was earning a full banking license in 2018 - something that had been a core focus of their infrastructure's evolution. This meant their infrastructure would need to fulfil all legal and compliance obligations around the handling of financial data, and also demonstrate the highest standard of operational resilience.

At the time, Tandem's IT and telephony infrastructure was hosted at various separate data centres, while their banking application was hosted on AWS services, and a separate site set aside for workplace recovery. Although multiple sites were involved here, the whole network depended on the London office, creating a single point of failure.

After a comprehensive evaluation of various suppliers, Tandem engaged with Exponential‐e to ensure these critical elements could be securely interconnected in order to maximise performance and scalability and ensure all requirements for full bank status were achieved. Exponential‐e's deep experience in the financial sector was critical here, providing Tandem with complete confidence that the partnership would provide a positive contribution to their journey.

Solution 

The networking solution delivered by Exponential‐e interconnected all Tandem sites via a high-performance WAN - a fully managed low‐latency solution that ensured consistent performance across all sites. This was implemented by a dedicated Exponential‐e account team, who project managed every stage of the deployment to ensure there would be no service disruption and that Tandem's long-term goals remained the primary focus throughout the deployment and beyond.

Critically, this fulfilled all compliance requirements regarding the handling and storage of financial data, while ensuring Tandem's teams would have the right tools at their fingertips at all times. To ensure a disruption free migration process, secure connections were created between Exponential-e's self‐owned network and Tandem's AWS services, allowing for a successful consolidation of the different elements of their infrastructure, and providing IT teams with a higher level of control and visibility.

As the partnership between Tandem and Exponential‐e evolved, a combination of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Office 365 was established as the ideal combination of solutions to further optimise Tandem's overall efficiency and enable effortless collaboration between their various teams, regardless of where they were located, with security policies applied automatically and role‐based segregation opening up a wide range of opportunities for remote working.

Throughout 2020, when the COVID‐19 pandemic forced organisations worldwide to rapidly transition to a remote workforce, the inherent flexibility and scalability of Tandem's infrastructure and a robust business continuity plan showed its true worth, as the entire workforce were able to begin working remotely with minimal disruption to day‐to‐day operations, and no compromise in terms of security and compliance. This option had already been utilised on an ad‐hoc basis by Tandem's engineers, but a scenario where it would need to be utilised on a company‐wide basis had been considered and factored into the business continuity plan, with tests taking place to ensure such measures would be viable, should they ever be needed.

In this way, Tandem has demonstrated how the right infrastructure, with the support of the right technology partner, provides organisations in even the most challenging sectors with the agility to pivot in response to unexpected, large‐scale shifts in the digital landscape. Tandem's long‐term digital transformation continues, with plans in place to bring its core banking suite in house and into the Cloud, for a further layer of control and flexibility.

Solution benefits

  • High‐performance VPN connectivity across multiple sites, with secure connections to the core banking suite provider.
  • Full compliance with all applicable regulations regarding the handling of financial and sensitive data.
  • A stress‐free transition to remote working, with zero compromise in the security of users' financial and sensitive data.
  • A strong foundation for ongoing Cloud transformation and consolidation.


Reduce complexity, increase speed and reliability

Exponential-e is a trusted technology partner for organisations across the Finance sector, offering innovative solutions that drive security, compliance and optimal performance at all levels.

Find out more in our Finance Brochure.

Click to read Exponential-e & Finance
Tags:
business continuity Green banking WAN compliance Remote Working
  3051 Hits
Our Customers
Finance Case Studies Finance

Odum Research

ODUM Research - A leader in financial strategies embraces Cloud transformation

A leader in financial strategies embraces Cloud transformation

About Odum Research

Odum Research creates pricing, risk, and execution strategies for a wide range of financial market challenges - particularly around crypto derivatives - drawing on leading-edge technology and the collective experience and expertise of their own financial experts.

Challenges

Keen to embrace the possibilities offered by the Cloud when it came to the development of effective trading strategies, Odum were clear that they would begin their digital transformation journey with a strong knowledge base, working with a technology partner who could provide a rigorous, honest assessment of the current digital landscape, identify the hidden opportunities available, and design and deliver a Cloud infrastructure that would provide Odum's teams with maximum control and visibility over their entire estate, freeing internal IT teams to focus on service quality, while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.

Solution 

Following a thorough evaluation of Exponential-e's capabilities and experience working with financial organisations and their highly specific cyber security requirements, Odum selected Exponential-e as their new technology partner. This involved a series of in-depth meetings between teams from both companies - including both consultants and technical specialists from Exponential-e - in order to develop a bespoke solution wrap that would not only suit Odum's immediate requirements, but also provide ample scope to scale and evolve in response to future shifts in the digital landscape.

As part of the wider cyber security ecosystem, the decision was made to utilise the Okta platform to manage user authentications and ensure all financial data would be handled in line with all applicable regulations. Exponential-e supported the roll-out of the platform, ensuring it would be properly integrated with the wider infrastructure.

This close cooperation between teams proved crucial to the success of the final deployment, with Exponential-e's consultants working closely with Odum's own IT specialists to ensure the move to the Cloud and rollout of the Okta platform was achieved with zero disruption to day-to-day operations - vital in the fast-moving financial markets - and without compromising security or compliance.

As a result, Odum are now equipped with the technology and expertise to fully embrace the Cloud, utilising cutting-edge technology to drive ever more innovative financial strategies that help maintain their edge in a dynamic, constantly evolving sector.

Solution benefits

The support from Exponential-e made all the difference when it came to getting things up and running. We were able to make use of everything more or less straight away, and I was able to sleep a bit more easily knowing our security was all in order.

Jack Concanon, Head of Technology, Odum Research


Reduce complexity, increase speed and reliability

Exponential-e is a trusted technology partner for organisations across the Finance sector, offering innovative solutions that drive security, compliance and optimal performance at all levels.

Find out more in our Finance Brochure. 

Click to read Exponential-e & Finance
Tags:
Odum Research financial trading security and compliance Okta platform Cloud migration
  5196 Hits
Neil Regan
Company Finance Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Data Protection

A tech-powered customer experience for the new era of financial services

A-tech-powered-customer-experience-for-the-new-era-of-financial-services

From day-to-day consumer banking to high-profile asset and wealth management, the way we all access financial services is changing in ways that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Online banking is now firmly established, allowing customers to manage their money securely within a few clicks - anytime, anywhere and without the need to visit a branch. A 2022 survey revealed that the quality of the online experience was a key factor in 81% of adults' choice of bank1.

Tags:
Finance customer experience omnichannel Security Data
  1744 Hits
Exponential-e
Security Digital Transformation Finance

The recent evolution of the Cyber Threat landscape for Financial Services

The-recent-evolution-of-the-Cyber-Threat-landscape-for-Financial-Services

As the Financial Services (FS) industry continues to adopt and leverage digital technologies to innovate and deliver customer-centric outcomes, there is also a major focus on inward change, on improving employee experience through streamlining, simplifying and consolidating platforms, infrastructure and processes. Of course, Digital Transformation comes with an abundance of risks. Some of these are already widely recognised and covered by the mainstream media, some are newly emerging, and others are as yet unknown.

Tags:
Financial Services industry customer-centric outcomes employee experience Digital Transformation
  4105 Hits
Neil Regan
Company Finance Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Data Protection

What is a ‘critical third party’, and why must the Finance sector’s technology providers be ready to earn this designation?

WHAT-I1

As a long-standing technology partner for multiple financial organisations across the UK, the team at Exponential-e have been observing the sector's evolving relationship with technology for some time - both the growing demand for a higher standard of operational resilience, and an increasing awareness of the challenges and opportunities that Cloud transformation presents.

Tags:
finance sector critical third party technology provider operational resilience secuirty
  3241 Hits
Neil Regan
Cloud Company Connectivity Data Digital Transformation Digital Transformation Finance Compliance Internet of Things Cyber Security Business Continuity Manufacturing Disaster Recovery Data Protection Artificial Intelligence

Maintaining operational resilience in a changing Finance sector

blog-header-Maintaining-operational-resilience-in-a-changing-Finance-sector

The Finance sector has always been one of the most dynamic, rapidly evolving industries, and this shows no signs of changing any time soon. But while shifts in the landscape may well open new opportunities, they will also come with new challenges, and it is the organisations who are ready and able to face these head-on who will continue to thrive in the years ahead.

Tags:
Cloud connectivity SD-WAN Finance sector disaster recovery
  1594 Hits
Exponential-e
Company Security Distributed Workforce Finance COVID-19 Cyber Security Endpoint Protection

The finance sector rises to meet its latest cyber security challenges

The-finance-sector-rises-to-meet-its-latest-cyber-security-challenges-header

The finance sector is required to have one of the most sophisticated cyber security postures in the world, with bureaus, banks, finance companies and insurers working closely with their technology partners to ensure sensitive financial data is managed, stored and transferred, with a stringent range of international security standards that must be adhered to at all times. However, cyber criminals have demonstrated repeatedly that they are constantly working to breach even the most sophisticated security ecosystems, devising new ways to exploit both technological vulnerabilities and human error.

Tags:
Cyber Security Posture Managing Financial Data Remote Working Cyber Security Operations Centre CSOC
  2094 Hits
Exponential-e
Company Finance Compliance Monitoring Cyber Security Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Data Protection CSOC

Why a new standard of operational resilience is required for the UK Finance sector

In a heightened cyber threat landscape - where ransomware attacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication - and having weathered the challenges of COVID-19 and the resulting move to hybrid working, the Finance sector is still continually challenged to demonstrate to its customers that critical services will remain available no matter what, and that sensitive financial data will remain fully secure at all times.

In a heightened cyber threat landscape - where ransomware attacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication - and having weathered the challenges of COVID-19 and the resulting move to hybrid working, the Finance sector is still continually challenged to demonstrate to its customers that critical services will remain available no matter what, and that sensitive financial data will remain fully secure at all times.

Tags:
operational resilience Finance sector disaster recovery financial data data security
  1972 Hits
Exponential-e
Company Finance Compliance Cyber Security Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Data Protection

The Finance sector’s relationship with its Cloud providers is evolving

The-Finance-sectors-relationship-with-its-Cloud-providers-is-evolving

For some years now, Cloud adoption has been steadily on the rise across the UK's Finance sector, with organisations including banks, insurers, and investment firms phasing out increasingly cumbersome legacy systems in favour of more scalable, agile, and cost-effective infrastructure. Indeed, more than 48% of UK banking services are now built on Cloud infrastructure.

Tags:
cloud adoption operational resilience Finance sector cyber security data protection
  1635 Hits
▲