Investing in protection from cyber attacks is the need of the hour, says Rohit Midha of Lenovo
On Day 2 of TechSparks 2021, Rohit Midha, Director of Service Sales, Lenovo spoke on why it is important for the BFSI industry to understand the importance of individual cyberattacks they face daily to protect businesses.
The Indian financial services ecosystem is going through very interesting times. Banks need to respond to the increasing customer demand for online access, the availability of new technical capabilities, and a more open regulatory environment.
While the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector has openly embraced digitalisation to cater to users, it has increased the risk of cyberattacks, said Rohit Midha, Director - Service Sales, Lenovo, while delivering a keynote on ‘Ensuring business continuity while pursuing growth’ at TechSparks 2021, YourStory’s flagship startup-tech event.
‘Banking’ on digitalisation
The banking and finance sector has witnessed one of the largest impacts of digitalisation in recent times, Rohit noted and said that this trend will only continue in the future.
“Customers have embraced the digital banking options, and they continue to look for value-for-money mixed with comfort and security of their data and money,” said Rohit, adding that the banking sector has responded well to customers’ demands.
Rohit further added that the adoption of technology was no longer a choice, but a necessity. “In a recent survey by AWC, 81 percent of CEOs in the sector were concerned about the speed of technological changes and we’re actively working on adopting technology like cloud, endpoint digitalisation, adoption of smart retail solutions, and blockchain,” he said.
He added that more BFSI organisations have started to outsource tasks like managing the uptime of their IT assets to dependable partners, which has helped focus more on their mission-critical objectives.
Adding to this, Rohit said that the growing space of digitisation can make cyber attacks the worst nightmares for organisations, exposing them to breaches or hacking. Quoting a report by McKinsey, he noted that the average cost of a data breach is almost $4 million, which does not factor the impact on brand reputation and business.
“With almost a 350 percent increase in breaches caused by things like brute force attacks, password breaches, managers accidentally leaking data, there is no doubt that cybersecurity gets centre stage attention from BFSI organisations,” he said.
Shielding against cyber attacks
Rohit noted that investment in the right endpoint protection, detection, and response tools is the need of the hour. Talking about how Lenovo has the potential to be a dependable partner for BFSI organisations, he listed various stages of Lenovo’s lifecycle solutions that help solve the pain points that organisations in the BFSI sector face.
- Planning: Lenovo’s team of experts could help plan the right device for the right job.
- Configuration and Deployment: These are services by which the device can be delivered to the end-user, irrespective of the location, in a ready-to-use state.
- Support and Protection: This stage is to help organisations ensure end-user device uptimes, and give them peace of mind with things like accidental damage protection.
- Managed Services: This is where Lenovo steps in as a dependable partner for all IT infrastructure and end-compute needs like security solutions, asset management solutions, and helpdesk.
- Asset Recovery: This stage is not just about getting a residual value for the device, but also ensuring data destruction, and compliance with green laws.
Lenovo Managed Services can manage the whole IT infrastructure and help business leaders focus on critical objectives. The comprehensive IT and asset management solutions can help organisations with device management, asset tracking, proactive analytics and self-healing, compliance, and security management.
“As we deliver all of these with some of our own IT toolsets, we also have strategic partnerships with our software solution partners where we design, deploy, deliver with our teams of experts,” shared Rohit.
Designed for a safe and secure workplace
Rohit went on to talk about how Lenovo’s shoulder-surfing protection provides an alert for users in the event that someone is looking at critical data that is in use on a device. The company's first boot service delegates unattended first-boot tasks like PC image setup processes into the Lenovo manufacturing facilities, thus ensuring increased security and reducing the usage of time, resources, and costs.
“Our IR camera adds yet another avenue for multi-factor authentication using the actual platform, further enhancing security,” he added.
Observing that many customers still refrain from unnecessary travel and face-to-face meetings, he added that Lenovo’s ThinkSmart machines are flexible across platforms and room sizes, and could be used for communication across branches and with customers.
Safe workplace solutions like touchless building access, elevated temperature screening, digital significance, and policy communication have been specifically designed to address the post-pandemic office reopening in order to avoid another lockdown.
In an attempt to understand the challenges that the BFSI sector faces with the evolving pace of digitisation, the growing threat of cybersecurity, and the need to adopt newer technologies, Rohit said that organisations have to face these stumbling blocks while managing costs, efficiency, customer experience, and ensuring compliance to the regulatory frameworks.
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