Securing Operations: FinTech Innovator’s Journey to Improved Compliance

Business Opportunity

Fortified Infrastructure with Upgraded Security

The client is a state-of-the-art, domain-native technology, and service provider that aims to transform financial institutions’ lending ecosystem. The business streamlines digital inclusion with its SaaS approach, helping financial institutions with end-to-end loan requirements. They leverage a plethora of cutting-edge technologies including blockchain, AI, ML, and more. Their solutions are leveraged to simplify a range of financial services including KYC, Compliance, onboarding, servicing, collections, and cross-selling. They were looking for a solution to oversee and control compliance needs, enhance their workload protection, and implement advanced security features. 

Our solution included the implementation of Palo Alto Networks VM series and Prisma Cloud to ensure optimum security for the infrastructure. Improvement in traffic monitoring with new-age security capabilities, Kubernetes workload protection, and compliance adherence. On-going threat protection with real-time monitoring, and strong network security were some of the highlights of the Palo Alto Networks VM Series. With these implementations, the client has gained a secure, effective, and compliant Cloud environment, with multi-fold improvement in security posture and overall capability.

The Challenge

The company encountered three main obstacles, which prompted them to go to Niveus for a complete solution.

Compliance Monitoring and Posture Management: One of the client’s main responsibilities was to make sure that a strong set of frameworks and strict regulatory criteria were followed. They were searching for a complete solution that would enable them to oversee and control compliance needs across their business.

Enhanced Workload Protection for Kubernetes: The client had implemented Kubernetes for managing containerized workloads, and so were looking to enhance their workload protection, addressing gaps and ensuring the integrity of their applications.

Need for Improved Traffic monitoring: Predicting the need to keep up with new-age developments, they were looking to implement advanced security features like Threat Prevention, URL Filtering, and WildFire for their Complex AWS environment with near zero downtime

Our Solution

The solution included a two-step strategy – implementation of Prisma Cloud for Cloud Posture Management and leveraging an NGFW with Palo Alto VM for defining a Network Perimeter to inspect the Traffic. 

The solution architecture prioritizes compliance, security, and availability, with traffic routed through a Palo Alto NGFW deployment in an Active-Active-Active setup across three availability zones. Inbound and outbound traffic is inspected for malware and DLP risks before reaching the client’s Production VPC. Panorama simplifies network visualization and security monitoring from a centralized Management VPC.

Prisma Cloud is implemented for the four major features of CWP, CIEM, CSPM, and CNS on the client’s  Prisma console. This implementation gave the client team a better understanding and tracking of the misconfiguration and vulnerability in its cloud infrastructure. Moreover, the tool has allowed the team to adhere to compliance. These included:

• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): This module ensured that the client maintained a compliance posture and monitored the Cloud infrastructure for misconfigurations.
• Cloud Workload Protection (CWP): It provided added protection for Kubernetes workload and deployed Applications for the client. 
• Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM): It manages user permissions and identities and lessens the risk of unauthorized access to any infrastructure.
• Cloud Network Security(CNS): CNS improved the aspect of traffic monitoring with threat prevention capabilities. Prisma Cloud implementation has enabled the client team to analyze and track the problems of their cloud infrastructure better.

NGFW with Palo Alto

For their NGFW, the client turned to Palo Alto Networks VM series to inspect traffic to its AWS cloud infrastructure. It provided best-of-breed security and protected networks in real-time against zero-day threats with full traffic visibility and control. The setup consisted of an auto-scaling Palo Alto VM series, complemented by a gateway load balancer for the security, high availability, and cost optimization of the client’s cloud infrastructure.

Benefits of the Securing with Niveus

Some of the benefits we enabled for the client include – 

• Consolidated Dashboard: Enabling a single pane of glass with a consolidated dashboard provides clearer oversight and essential transparency into security challenges across cloud environments.
• Manage Security Alerts Better: Ensured that threat detection and monitoring present security alerts according to priority for better redressal of critical issues
• Regulated Compliance Reporting: We enabled the automated regulatory reporting that ensures adherence to compliance through CSPM
• Improved Incident Response: Faster and more efficient incident response is possible due to enhanced, centralized visibility
• Improved Traffic Monitoring: Better monitoring of traffic enabled using ATP, URL Filtering, and IP Whitelisting

Results

Here are the results of the implementation – 

• Improved Security Stand: The client’s security architecture was enhanced further with tailored policies, alerts and notifications, and ongoing monitoring setup to deliver enriched security throughout their cloud environments.
• Improved Efficiency: SSO JIT and Slack integrations facilitated better and easier access control, user management, incident responses, and thus better operational workflows.
• Regulatory Compliance: The client was able to satisfy regulatory standards, guaranteed by compliance regulations devised under customized compliance and IAM rules.
• Proactive Threat Management: With tailored runtime rules and workload protection techniques in place, the client is better placed against security attacks that might be on the horizon.
• Unified Management: Their AWS and Google Workspace now have the capability of a comprehensive, unified cloud resource management system for enhanced monitoring and management of the entire cloud infrastructure.

Power of Partnership

The partnership with Niveus Solutions was truly a differentiator for the client. Years of experience as a Palo Alto Networks partner put us in the right position to deliver a tailored security solution that would meet all their compliance requirements. With specialist knowledge and experience in deploying advanced security technologies from Palo Alto, we ensured that the client received the best class of protection for its networks, along with real-time threat monitoring. Our extensive experience with Prisma helped us in implementing the technology with the best practices and strategies available – ensuring better efficiency, security, and compliance adherence.