Banks and financial institutions are increasingly under the
scanner for possible data security and privacy breaches. However,
within an increasingly deperimeterized world, they are also forced
to share confidential data with customers, employees and third
party vendors.
This requires BFSI companies to walk the proverbial double edged
sword by maintaining privacy on the one hand, while also sharing
critical data with customers, stakeholders and other outside
parties. This requires control over data by them even after it has
left their premises. IRM or Information Rights Management
technology ensures organizations can control how the data is being
used after it crosses their perimeter.
“Defining a perimeter itself is a tough ask today, in fact
virtually impossible in this deperimeterized world,” says
Vishal Gupta, CEO of Mumbai-based Seclore Technologies, a leading
vendor of IRM solutions. “Employees today are extremely
mobile, access data and applications from various devices;
official, personal as well as public and they use a variety of
applications. Therefore any sort of perimeter whether based on
location, device or application is virtually impossible.
That’s where IRM becomes extremely critical,” adds
Gupta.
According to Gupta, although organizations may be spending
millions on securing data within their premises, it is extremely
vulnerable to misuse once it leaves the organization. Outsourcing
of business processes by banks for example is a possible threat
source for data misuse and breach of security. Banks, for instance
outsource a number of business processes today including the
printing of credit card and bank statements to third parties, where
data goes through a number of employees and technologies while it
is being processed.
This leaves critical data vulnerable to theft by employees of
the third party vendor who could quite easily steal it and sell it
to other parties looking for commercial gain out of such pilfered
data. Identifying such breach and pressing for damages is like
searching for a needle in a haystack.
IRM allows organizations to set rules regarding who can access
data, and till what time. They can also define rules so that data
self-destructs after it is printed once. Prevention of screenshots,
copying and pasting together with clear definition of who can
access the data makes unauthorized replication of the data
extremely difficult.
No wonder some of the early adopters within the BFSI sector have
already made IRM a key part of their data security infrastructure.
“IRM is in the early adoption stage yet, but we have seen
adoption from leading banks such as HDFC, ICICI, Kotak for both
their banking and insurance divisions. Bajaj Allianz is also our
customer. Among the PSU banks, SBI is the early adopter, while
other banks and financial institutions are evaluating this
technology,” adds Gupta.
However, some barriers remain. Key among them is the requirement
for recipient of an IRM-protected document to install something
before they can access the file. “This was seen as a barrier
by organizations, as it would inconvenience recipients, but they
are realizing that it gives them control over their critical data.
Also the recipient is also not threatened as the sender has control
only over the data sent by them and not over any other aspect or
data of the recipient’s computer,” says Gupta.
With increasing awareness of the benefits of IRM and criticality
of data privacy dictated by both business needs and tightening
regulatory frameworks, Gupta hopes to see heightened adoption of
IRM within the BFSI sector soon.
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