In the financial services sector, failure of critical IT systems is not an option. Cohesity is pleased to have been selected to join the Sheltered Harbor Alliance Partner Program to help boost cyber resiliency in the U.S. financial system.
Sheltered Harbor is a not-for-profit, industry-led organization with a clearly defined mission: “protect customers, financial institutions, and public confidence in the financial system if a catastrophic event like a cyberattack causes critical systems—including backups—to fail.” The Sheltered Harbor resilience standards combine secure data vaulting of critical customer account information, a resiliency plan to provide customers timely access to their account balances and funds in a worst-case scenario, and certification to demonstrate adherence to the standards.
In concert with a vast ecosystem of subject matter experts, industry associations, core service providers, and select partners—including Cohesity—Sheltered Harbor is dedicated to developing and refining resilience standards for the protection and recovery of isolated data.
Cohesity is a natural ally in the effort as Cohesity’s data management and data security solutions are already helping numerous organizations protect their data, detect threats, and when necessary, recover from cyberattacks—including ransomware. Customers, for example, are utilizing and relying on Cohesity FortKnox, a modern, software as a service (SaaS) data isolation and recovery solution that can play a critical role in helping organizations minimize the impact of cyberattacks. Cohesity believes that giving customers the ability to choose which solutions work best for them is optimal and preferred, and we’re delighted to partner with Sheltered Harbor as we both aim to improve the security and resilience posture of organizations.
Cohesity’s modern data management is an ideal complement to the organization’s work which we’re further enhancing to meet Sheltered harbor’s requirements per their specifications in support of industry participants and protection of the sector.
Facing down ransomware
Financial services data is not only highly valuable, but it can also be highly vulnerable. Cohesity is teaming with Sheltered Harbor to protect the sector, as cyberattacks, including ransomware, continue to rise both in sophistication and volume, with some reports estimating that a new business will fall victim to ransomware every two seconds. Financial services organizations are no exception and are increasingly targeted by bad actors. Over half of ransomware attacks are aimed at one of three industries—banking, utilities and retail, ZDNet reported in early 2022, and criminals are finding success.
Exchanges and financial institutions made nearly $600 million in payments tied to ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021 alone, according to a report by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network cited by Berkley Financial Specialists. It was a 30% increase from all reported activity the prior year.
Because there’s no sign of cyberthreats abating—cybercrime is predicted to cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025—the onus is on financial institutions to be better at defending their data. The Sheltered Harbor organization is devoted to coordinating the development and refinement of the financial services industry’s purpose-built resilience standards, promoting adoption across the industry, supporting implementation, and ensuring adherence through independent audits and awarding certifications.
Modern data management for cyber resilience
With Cohesity’s data management capabilities, organizations have access to:|
- Zero Trust security, empowering firms to preserve reputations and keep businesses running – Cohesity’s architecture is built on the principles of least privilege and segregation of duties with granular security controls. It supports integrations with leading cybersecurity vendors to offer a holistic approach to threat detection and rapid recovery.
- AI-powered insights, improving decisions and jumpstarting incident response – Built-in Cohesity intelligence can play a key role in helping financial institutions as well as organizations in other verticals flag potential issues. For example, Cohesity’s AI-powered anomaly detection, offered through our Helios multicloud data platform, can help identify potential indications of emerging ransomware attacks so administrators can take necessary actions to minimize proliferation and impact.
- Simplicity at scale, which can help reduce financial services IT cost and complexity – Only Cohesity powers multiple data management use cases (backup, data isolation and archiving, ransomware recovery, disaster recovery, file and object services, and analytics) all in one easy-to-use scalable platform that helps reduce your infrastructure attack surface.
- Third-party extensibility, allowing firms to meet today’s unique business requirements while future-proofing for tomorrow’s – Cohesity includes APIs for integrating third-party apps and solutions, providing enhanced defense-in-depth and data visibility for compliance needs while further reducing cost and complexity.
Cohesity Threat Defense data security architecture brings together a range of products, services, and capabilities from Cohesity and ecosystem partners to help customers protect their data, identify threats via AI and ML, and easily recover in the event of a cyberattack.
Cohesity customers include five of the top 10 U.S. banks as well as four of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies modernizing and strengthening their data management strategies. The company’s financial services expertise can help accelerate adoption and implementation of Sheltered Harbor’s resilience standards.
If you are a financial services customer, learn more about Sheltered Harbor and Cohesity in financial services.
