Unlocking Value, Ensuring Compliance, and Safeguarding Your Data Assets

In today’s digital landscape, data is one of the most valuable assets an organisation can possess.   

This is particularly true for financial services businesses, where asset management is crucial in delivering success for the business. Recognising this, the Australian regulator (APRA) has introduced compliance obligations such as CPG 235, wherein FSIs are required to protect sensitive data from unauthorised access, theft, or misuse.  

Effective management of data assets involves ensuring their accuracy, security, and accessibility. The intention of the regulation is to encourage behaviours within these organisations  that prioritise: 

  • data governance 
  • privacy 
  • compliance 

What is a data asset? 

A data asset is any piece of information that holds value for your organisation. This encompasses a wide range of sensitive information, from customer details, through to financial records, all of which can drive business decisions and strategic initiatives.   

This may include:  

  1. Intellectual Property (IP): Proprietary information that provides a competitive advantage. In financial services, IP could be trading algorithms, investment strategies, or customer segmentation models. 
  2. Transactional Data: Records of business transactions, such as sales, purchases, and payments. 
  3. Customer Data: Information about clients, including demographics, preferences, and behavior. 
  4. Market Data: This can encompass external data related to market trends, stock prices, interest rates, and economic indicators. Understanding this information is vital for strategic planning and forecasting, enabling businesses to stay ahead of market shifts and competition. 
  5. Compliance Data: Compliance Data involves records necessary for adhering to regulatory requirements, such as anti-money laundering (AML) reports or Know Your Customer (KYC) data. Maintaining accurate compliance data ensures that businesses meet legal standards and avoid penalties. 
  6. Structured Data: Data stored in databases, spreadsheets, and tables. This includes customer records, financial transactions, and inventory levels. 
  7. Unstructured Data: Lacks a predefined format and can be more challenging to manage. This includes text documents, emails, images, PDF’s, and social media posts. 
  8. Metadata: Information about other data. Metadata for an image might include its resolution, creation date, and author. 

Why understanding Data Assets is Crucial 

Recognising and managing your data assets effectively is paramount for leveraging their full potential. At mcrIT, we understand the intricacies of data management and offer tailored solutions to secure, manage, and optimise your data assets. Our services ensure that your valuable information is protected and used to drive your business forward. 

Data Asset Management doesn’t need to be complex.  

To begin with, you can begin to explore your own maturity levels with the following: 

  1. Risk Management:
    • Identify and assess data-related risks. 
    • Implement mitigation strategies to safeguard data assets. 
  2. Technology and Infrastructure:
    • Leverage appropriate technology and infrastructure for effective data management. 
  3. Monitoring and Reporting:
    • Continuously monitor data risk management practices. 
    • Provide regular reporting to senior management and the board. 

 

Cybersecurity for Financial Services with mcrIT and Fortinet 

As high-value targets, financial services institutions are continually being attacked, making it difficult to move from a reactive cybersecurity stance to a proactive one. The Fortinet Security Fabric offers a solution that includes leading-edge machine learning and AI technologies, providing timely and consistently top-rated protection and actionable threat intelligence. 

Our clients achieve significant cost savings. In one of our SOC Automation deployments, using FortiSOAR, our customer managed to save around a million dollars on a single use case.   

In another scenario using FortiRecon, various threats on the dark web (including user credentials and associated actions) were identified pre-emptively, preventing exploitation.  

Using NDR, featuring machine-learning driven network anomaly detection, our clients can effectively identify advanced threats, which helps them to meet SOCI compliance requirements. 

mcrIT has experience implementing various Fortinet solutions to achieve SOCI compliance: 

  • Lift and Shift: Design and implement topology changes with minimal impact to operations and customers. 
  • FortiEDR: Endpoint detection and response. 
  • FortiSIEM: Security information and event management. 
  • FortiGate NGFWs: Next-generation firewalls. 
  • FortiSandbox: Advanced threat protection and malware analysis. 

mcrIT offers services that help in understanding how to tap and maximise the value of your data assets. Contact us today to learn how we can help you secure, manage, and leverage your data for business success. 

If you need help building your digital defences, don’t hesitate to call in an expert. Cybersecurity experts offer a range of services from security assessments to managed security solutions, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what you do best – running your business.  

Act today, reach out to the team at mcrIT and get started.   

Get In Touch Today