How hybrid cloud infrastructure can help big banks

Large banks handle billions of pounds with investments, income and savings. They also manage huge amounts of private information, including data captured by their physical security systems. Today, they face challenges related to evolving cyber threats, rising IT costs and handling huge amounts of data. These challenges are often exacerbated because banks are burdened by siled technology and processes.

Many banks still use various aging tools designed to meet the specific needs of different branches or branches. Some even have as many as 1,000 different applications in place in their networks. These older tools and silos they make make it difficult for banks to increase security, reduce costs and improve the customer experience.

A forward-thinking cyber-Russian landscape

The banking industry is currently the number one target for cyber attacks. Cybercriminals are 300 times more likely to be targeted than any other industry. To put this in context, in 2020 alone, banks experienced over 3400 successful attacks.

Banking is also the industry that is most affected by ransomware. Compared with the first half of 2020, banks globally experienced a staggering 1318% year-on-year increase in ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021.

It is important to remember that although these attacks lead to an immediate loss of revenue, they can also result in future losses. The negative effect of a successful attack on a bank’s reputation can jeopardize customer confidence, shareholder value and potential future earnings.

Banks need to implement innovative solutions to keep up with these ever-changing threats. They must make choices that protect data now and meet future needs.

Reduce IT costs

At a time when large banks are both embracing digital banking and facing increasing cyber security attacks, security departments are expected to work smarter with reduced budgets. Cutting costs has become a top priority as banks want to modernize their systems.

One of the main problems facing security and IT departments is that their older systems are both inefficient and costly to maintain. Banks typically spend about 75% of their IT budgets on maintaining old architecture.

Upgrading to a modern security system can help reduce maintenance costs. Nevertheless, without a good strategy, banks risk introducing new vulnerabilities. Embracing new technologies that improve operational efficiency and leverage the cloud or take a hybrid cloud approach can help reduce IT costs. But only if networks are not exposed to increased risk.

Break down silos

To meet the demands of a complex threat landscape and achieve increased operational efficiency, many banks use single-purpose tools to solve specific short-term problems. Unfortunately, the result is often a collection of systems that were not designed to work together in the first place. Institutions should instead think about the basis of their physical security system and its capacity to evolve and meet future needs.

Breaking down silos means taking a hybrid approach. This involves assembling systems and moving to the cloud. With a unified platform, it is possible to ensure a consistent level of cybersecurity protection across all branches and to improve operations by centrally managing physical security. In the same way, it is possible to increase efficiency by reducing the update and maintenance costs that are inherent in integrated tools. And by deploying in the cloud using embedded analytics solutions, banks can better protect their data against hardware defects and theft, as well as derive practical insights to keep branches going.

Large cloud providers can offer levels of data security, access and availability far beyond what a single institution can hope to achieve cost-effectively internally. Furthermore, it helps to reduce the cost of physical data storage across smaller branches where dedicated server hardware may no longer be needed.

Use a hybrid cloud infrastructure to improve intelligence

Computer-driven intelligence is essential to improve surveys and the customer experience. Working with a unified hybrid cloud infrastructure and cloud-based solutions with built-in analysis makes it easier to access and correlate data from multiple systems. And this means increased security and greater insight.

Because a unified platform can automatically associate video and other data streams as access control, it reduces the time required to find and correlate information and eliminates human error. Together with a cloud-based evidence management solution, it can assist security personnel and law enforcement during a post-incident investigation by providing a simple, central point of contact for investigation.

In addition to simplifying investigations by making it easy to manage and review video and share encrypted files with law enforcement, a evidence management solution also reduces the cost of copying evidence to DVDs. It can drastically simplify the evidence process, especially when it involves obtaining video footage from several different locations.

Deriving insights that can enhance the customer experience is another benefit of migrating to a hybrid cloud infrastructure. This can include seeing how many people visit a place at any one time, deciding how long customers are waiting in a queue, and how foot traffic moves through different environments.

When large banks have access to their security data, they can implement organizational and staffing strategies that reduce waiting times and facilitate the flow of people through branches. Ultimately, unlocking this information helps banks offer an improved customer experience in the department.

Protects banks now and in the future

Large banks need to look at their security systems as more than just a collection of tools. Instead, they must recognize them as a means of improving operations and gaining access to greater insights. There is a lot to be gained from migrating physical security to a hybrid cloud infrastructure. First, in terms of increasing security. Secondly, when it comes to reducing ongoing IT maintenance costs and improving the customer experience.

About the Author: Viet Tang is Senior Sales Engineer UK & Ireland for Genetec, a provider of IP video surveillance, access control and license plate recognition solutions in a single platform. He has been in the IT, technology and video distribution industry for over 20 years.