Armis, the unified asset intelligence platform, has joined the premier industry body for financial services in the UK, UK Finance, to help members tackle cybersecurity challenges stemming from managed or unmanaged connected assets in their environments. As an associate member, Armis says it will use the partnership to drive awareness of financial institutions’ risk exposures and the need for real-time visibility of every connected asset.
The company hopes the partnership will help organisations prioritise immediate risks to improve operational resilience in the face of changing global regulatory requirements.
Armis cites DCMS research figures that show 54% of finance and insurance firms have reported a cyber security breach or attack in the last 12 months, more than the average for businesses overall (39%); therefore, as part of critical national infrastructure, cyber resilience in banking and finance is an increasingly global imperative. Consequently, financial regulators in some geographies are already requesting detailed evidence of end-to-end infrastructure compromise assessments that will allow them to detect previously unseen gaps as well as evidence remediation plans.
“Traditional audit approaches on a ‘representative slice’ of banks’ infrastructure are no longer effective in understanding risk exposure to advanced attacks, which could come from any part of an FI’s infrastructure,” said Peter Doggart, Chief Strategy Officer at Armis. “This presents a unique set of challenges for FIs as they often battle complex hybrid infrastructures with increasing attack surfaces. The growth of cloud and home working, combined with an increasing level of traditionally unmanaged devices – like IoT, AV services, or building entry systems – continue to layer on additional attack vectors.”
The result is financial institutions are suffering from too many disconnected versions of the truth when it comes to an accurate picture of asset inventory in their environments, the company said in a press release. This creates control gaps that impact not only operational efficiency, but also resiliency and attack surface reduction efforts.
Jason Cole, Director of Associate Membership at UK Finance said “We are pleased to welcome Armis into our associate membership, where they will have the opportunity to share their knowledge and insights with our members and make the financial sector safer and inclusive for all.”
Armis provides passive, real-time end-to-end visibility across all managed and unmanaged assets and is well positioned to help global financial institutions due to its unique knowledgebase of more than 2 billion assets, enabling FIs to rapidly gain visibility into every asset they have, see it categorised, understand risks, and enable protective actions.
