In the high-stakes world of banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), collectively known as the finance sector, where transactions occur in milliseconds and financial destinies are determined in the blink of an eye, the need for uninterrupted connectivity, secure transactions, and access to accurate, real-time information is critical. It constitutes the foundation for the very integrity and success of financial operations.
Amidst this landscape of critical dependencies lies the ever-evolving array of cyberthreats, each posing a unique challenge to the security and efficiency of the finance sector. The graph below paints a stark picture of the cybersecurity battleground faced by finance in 2022.
According to the findings detailed in the 2023 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, intrusion attempts constitute a notable 35% of the cyberthreats in 2022, highlighting the aggressive efforts of cybercriminals to breach financial defenses. The report further reveals ransomware’s significant impact, comprising 16.33% of attacks, and underlines its ongoing role in threatening critical systems for extortion. Malware attacks are not far behind at 12.44%, signaling the continuous risk of harmful software infiltrating networks.
In the face of these threats, a DDI solution integrates DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (IPAM). DDI not only bolsters network resilience and security but also enables the real-time collaboration and communication that modern financial services mandate.
Let’s explore how the strategic application of DDI solutions can empower BFSI companies to navigate the complexities of today’s cyberthreat landscape, all while ensuring that sensitive financial data remains secure and operations stay efficient.
Seamless control over branch office networks
DDI solutions seamlessly integrate remote DNS-DHCP clusters in private networks connected via advanced networking technologies like point-to-point dark fiber, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), and private Internet Protocol Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP MPLS) and VPN services, ensuring optimal routing and secure connectivity across regional branch office networks. This integration enables remote control and monitoring of their core network services, standardizing processes and enforcing policies consistently, regardless of the cluster’s location.
Process standardization
As we already established, DDI solutions provide a centralized platform for managing DNS, DHCP, and IPAM services. This centralization helps standardize processes within the financial organization, ensuring consistent configuration settings across all their network devices and services. This reduces the risk of misconfigurations that can lead to security vulnerabilities or service disruptions.
DDI solutions facilitate the automated provisioning of network services, ensuring that new devices or services are deployed according to standardized processes without any manual intervention. This reduces manual errors and ensures efficient allocation of network resources on any scale
Policy-driven automation
DDI solutions enable policy-driven automation, allowing financial institutions to enforce compliance with internal policies and regulatory standards. Policies for DNS, DHCP, and IPAM can be defined and automated, ensuring all network configurations adhere to these policies.
Through policy-driven automation, DDI solutions can dynamically impart configurations to devices joining the network based on certain predefined criteria like the device’s architecture, OS type, and more. Also, DDI solutions can customize DNS resolution based on the client’s IP address, controlling domain requests to enforce access policies. Similarly, by monitoring network changes, events, or identifying security threats, DDI systems can adjust DNS resolutions or IP address allocations in real time to mitigate risks and ensure network integrity. This agility ensures that network policies are consistently enforced, even in dynamic environments.
Automating the core network services based on predefined policies, DDI solutions help optimize the use of network resources, scheduling maintenance tasks like scavenging stale DNS records and abandoned IP addresses and ensuring the efficient use of DNS, DHCP services, and IP addresses. By automating routine tasks and centralizing control, DDI solutions free up IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives rather than day-to-day network management chores.
Enhancing security with strategic network segmentation
The financial sector handles a huge wealth of sensitive and confidential financial information, marking it as a prime target for cyberattacks. Therefore, it demands robust defense measures like network segmentation. This practice involves subdividing a network into smaller segments to bolster security and access control. With network segmentation, banks can deter the spread of malicious software and confine potential breaches, reducing the overall vulnerability of the network. Neglecting proper segmentation can result in dire outcomes, including data leaks, monetary loss, and significant legal and reputational fallout.
Insurance firms adhering to PCI DSS standards often employ subnet-based network segmentation to segregate credit card transaction networks from others networks. By implementing centralized DNS policies set through response policy zones (RPZs), domain views, and access control lists (ACLs), these companies ensure only authorized users can interact with the domains and services that handle credit card information.
Increased reliability and uptime
DDI solutions are designed to ensure high availability and redundancy for DNS, DHCP, and IPAM services, which are critical for maintaining reliable connectivity in financial institutions. This minimizes downtime and ensures continuous operation of banking services.
Efficient network scalability and flexibility
As financial institutions grow, so do their network demands. DDI solutions, like DDI Central, enable financial institutions to scale their networks as needed, allowing for incremental branch-by-branch growth through modular expansion. This approach removes the need for complete network overhauls, enabling seamless integration with current systems, cost-effective scaling, and simplified network management.
Improved user experience
Optimizing core network services performance is paramount for online financial and insurance services. DDI solutions optimize the speed of resolving a domain name, reducing latency and improving the speed of services for end users—crucial factors for online banking applications and services. By automating routine network management tasks, DDI solutions help improve customer service and free up IT resources to focus on innovation.
Auditing and reporting
As BFSI sector is subject to strict regulatory requirements concerning data protection and privacy. DDI solutions offer comprehensive logging and reporting capabilities that aid in compliance with regulations like the GDPR, Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), and more.
Does your organization need a DDI solution?
The adoption of DDI solutions by BFSI companies marks a significant leap towards managing distributed complex network environments with greater efficiency, security, and resilience. By centralizing the management of the core network services like DNS, DHCP and IPAM, DDI solutions enhance security, ensure reliability, and help organizations comply with regulatory standards.
In an era where the digital transformation of banking and financial services is accelerating, DDI solutions ensure that banks can deliver the high-quality and reliable services their customers expect.
Download a free, 30-day trial now to explore how DDI Central can transform your network.
