Banking Security in the Cloud

A recent Economist article regarding the success of cloud computing within the banking industry has struck a chord with me this week. The article explains that small and medium sized banks are currently turning to the cloud to combat business and budget demands. One particular example from the article caught my eye; a Spanish bank that took 20 hours to complete credit-risk simulations. Once the bank opted to move the application to the cloud, the time for completion was reduced to 20 minutes. The time and cost savings for banks when implementing cloud strategies are staggering. However, it’s important to consider security and data protection when it comes to widespread cloud adoption, especially for bigger banks.

Banks store a plethora of sensitive client information; from the more mundane, such as email addresses and phone numbers, to the extremely risky - social security and bank account numbers. One way IT managers can ensure customer data is protected is by using data connectivity solutions with encryption capabilities. This includes a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) that provides network data encryption support as well as a securely designed architecture.

SSL encryption protects data integrity by encrypting information and providing client/server authentication. It’s easy to implement since it relies on established development libraries and guards against network and database access security issues, such as SQL injections, packet sniffing and credential vulnerabilities. A securely designed architecture can also reinforce your security by denying service attacks and ensuring that only certain networks communicate directly with the database. Bank IT managers should take both of these features into consideration when moving data to the cloud.

Progress DataDirect offers function-rich and high value data connectivity, providing security, quality, performance, and full standards compliance for consistency across all databases throughout banking systems. The same data security technology that’s used in DataDirect’s Connect product is included in the upcoming DataDirect Cloud connectivity service. By implementing one of our data encryption solutions, problems such as loss in brand and customer confidence that occur after high-profile data breaches can be avoided. You can learn more about those here: http://ow.ly/njXcW or by asking us at @DataDirect_News.