Cisco Security Solutions Support Invest Bank’s Digital Transformation

Cisco and Invest Bank PSC, a leading commercial bank in Sharjah, UAE, announced today the successful deployment of Cisco’s comprehensive cybersecurity solutions, including Cisco® Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), to support the bank’s digital transformation strategy.

Invest Bank’s digitization strategy addresses fast-changing customer expectations and the massive opportunities created by the digital era, including the possibility to offer differentiated customer experiences across multichannel platforms. Amidst increasing cyber threats, the UAE bank also saw the need to establish pervasive security as a foundation for their digital capability, and as an enabler of their continued evolution and growth.

“Invest Bank’s vision is to adopt the latest technologies to deliver greater value to our customers, employees and shareholders. As we expanded our mobile digital network and internet banking services, we sought to establish a robust security framework that underlies every aspect of our digital transformation,” said Sami Farhat, CEO, Invest Bank. “Cisco’s comprehensive cybersecurity portfolio provided us with a multi-pronged approach that spans the full attack continuum and is able to offer the highest level of protection for our assets, data and operations.”

Amidst a threat environment marked by increasing cybersecurity complexity and a growth in breaches, Invest Bank needed an easy-to-manage solution that could deliver consistent protection and service across all locations. After evaluating multiple security vendors, the bank selected Cisco for its integrated security offering and effectiveness against advanced threat attacks and ransomware. The solution includes the intelligence-powered Cisco® AMP for Endpoints, a next-generation security solution that prevents, detects, and responds to advanced threats. The security solution incorporates intrusion prevention, system recovery, analytics insight, as well as monitoring and authentication.

Since deploying Cisco security solutions, Invest Bank has been able to reduce the average time spent responding to and mitigating security threats from 10 days to 2-3 hours. This frees up valuable time for the IT and security teams to develop new applications and customer facing platforms and drive deeper operational efficiencies. The multi-level security architecture also allows the bank to share real-time information and grants them deep visibility and control.

“Financial institutions are built on customer trust and security is critical to establishing and maintaining that trust, as well as to driving innovation and growth. Cybersecurity must therefore be viewed as a growth advantage,” said Fady Younes, Deputy Managing Director and Operations Director - East Region, Cisco Middle East. “As the financial services industry embraces digital transformation, it faces new cybersecurity challenges that require the adoption of a holistic cyber security framework. Cisco’s approach is to integrate security into the network to help create a fully secured environment which is not only capable of preventing a breach or attack, but in case of one occurring, also resilient enough to stop further proliferation.”

As banks digitize their operations, new digital channels for engagement with customers have emerged along with open architectures, cloud, outsourcing and partnership models. At the same time, banks are exposed to new types of cyber threats, against which a perimeter-only security approach will not suffice. Invest Bank set out to protect their customers, network and reputation effectively through a solution that is simple, open and automated. The bank also sought to reduce its network management, operational and security costs.

A major roadblock to digital innovation in banks is the fear of a data breach as well as the resulting regulatory fines. In a Cisco study, 71% of banking executives said concerns over security are hindering their ability to innovate, and 39% said they have stopped a mission-critical initiative because of security problems.