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Managing Risk in the Cloud for Financial Services

By July 6, 2021February 3rd, 2023No Comments

Multi-cloud has become the preferred approach as enterprises around the world reach a new stage of cloud maturity. Many are seeing the benefits from using multiple clouds for different uses. For example, using Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the primary for compute while using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for workload deployment.

These positive outcomes have encouraged businesses to shift their focus towards implementing a cloud-first strategy. The adoption of multi-cloud has also driven the need for cloud networking solutions that supports secure cloud-to-cloud connectivity with better control and visibility.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses began to prioritise cloud spending as end users are now consuming more digital services in everyday life. According to Gartner, cloud spending will accelerate post-COVID-19, making up 14.2% of the total global enterprise IT spending market in 2024, up from 9.1% in 2020.

Managing risk across the cloud
It’s obvious that many businesses today have become more reliant on cloud service providers (CSP) to support their daily operations. Even with all the signs pointing towards a cloud-first future, some businesses are still taking a careful approach in their cloud strategy. Increased reliance brings greater risk of being exposed to cyberattacks or even unplanned downtime.
Highly regulated sector like the financial services industry is one of earliest sector to explore the benefits of the cloud, but was initially resistant due to challenges around risk management. Financial institutions must ensure risk management is in place. This covers several aspects such as application security, data and privacy protection and business continuity.
At the same time, it is required to have visibility over the real-time network utilisation and statistics. Financial institutions (FIs) have to carefully review, monitor and test the third-party vendors they are working with to connect to the public cloud services.
Regulatory vs. operational challenges
There are two ways to look at the challenges that FIs are facing today – one being regulatory and the other being operational.
Regulatory challenges refer to compliance, security and risk management. Many regulators consider the use of cloud services as a form of outsourcing. This usually involves multiple parties including the network provider and the CSP.
FIs need to assess the risk profile of these vendors and determine the controls required for protecting their data and where it should be located. Connectivity to the cloud and between the clouds should be deployed over a private network instead of the public internet. Having strong network security such as firewalls to secure the network between the FI and the internet as well as connections with third parties is a must.
As for the operational challenges, they need to be able to scale their clouds to grow their digital services and also meet the usage requirements. Other aspects include having the visibility to continuously monitor utilisation of its system resources such as the network throughput, latency and packet loss.
It is critical to have a network that can pivot to these changes such as increasing bandwidth or short-term cloud deployment for backing up non-mission critical data. However, not all network providers can cater to such demands.
Seeking the right cloud networking experts
At Epsilon, we understand the complexities of cloud networking and the global regulatory landscape. Our cloud connectivity solutions are designed to help FIs and all kinds of enterprises navigate these challenges, supported by a team of cloud networking experts.
Our network as a service (NaaS) platform, Infiny, allows businesses to deliver on-demand connectivity to the CSP of their choice. They can use Infiny to deploy high-capacity dedicated connections to the cloud at scale over our global private network, securing their applications and data.
Looking for more advanced options? We are with you in every stage of your cloud journey from connecting a single cloud to managing a multi-cloud environment. Get in touch with us today to learn more.

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