Omdia report finds 97% of financial organizations plan to adopt security automation to address mounting cybersecurity pressures

BOULDER, Colo. – Oct. 24, 2023 – Swimlane, the AI-enabled security automation company, today announced a first-of-its-kind security automation partner ecosystem tailored for the finance industry. Financial services customers will be able to leverage the power of Swimlane low-code security automation in and outside of the security operations center (SOC) to automate fraud protection, compliance, and transaction and credit line monitoring.

Swimlane today also released the “State of Security for Financial Services” report, which uncovered the finance industry’s cybersecurity challenges and the key to overcoming them. The report is based on research from Omdia, which surveyed 304 senior executives at financial institutions responsible for making cybersecurity decisions. 

Mounting Challenges Make Finance the Most Siloed and Complex Industry

The financial services sector faces unique business constraints that create complex challenges for security teams due to the abundance of personally identifiable information (PII), and sensitive customer data at stake. Until now, no other security solution has been developed to pinpoint and resolve the most pressing pain points for the industry. According to the report, financial organizations indicate their top unique cybersecurity challenges include:  

• Sensitivity of data (54%)
• Compliance and regulatory requirements (46%)
• Fraud (43%)

The report found that siloed security solutions are making it difficult for financial organizations to defend against cyberattacks. Almost half of respondents (48%) have 31 or more standalone security products, which is 16% more than all other industries combined. 63% of financial organizations also stated that deployed security products increased over the last 12 months. 

Financial organization security teams need various tools to protect complex technology environments. However, disjointed tools that lack cross-communication and cloud integration are straining team bandwidth and creating security gaps. Cybercriminals are taking advantage of these gaps, leading to frequent and costly breaches. According to the report, 42% of financial organizations have had at least one breach with a total cost of $1M in the last 12 months, with 20% experiencing a breach with a total cost of more than $5M.

“As cyber threats become more sophisticated, financial institutions face mounting pressure from regulators and stakeholders to enhance the resiliency of their systems, and customers expect their data to be protected at all costs,” said Philip Benton, Principal Analyst of Financial Services at Omdia. “The stakes are high: a single cybersecurity breach can forever tarnish customer trust and a company’s reputation. Even the most sophisticated security and fraud teams struggle to keep up.”

Security Automation Partner Ecosystem Uniquely Built for the Finance Industry

Financial institutions are investing in security automation solutions to navigate growing complexity. The report found that almost all financial services companies (97%) plan to adopt security automation. When asked what tools are being evaluated for their SOC, 44% of organizations listed security automation as a top choice.

“Security automation has emerging use cases for teams outside of the SOC, including fraud, compliance, legal case management and merchant onboarding,” said Andrew Braunberg, Principal Analyst of SecOps at Omdia. “For example, security automation is essential for security and fraud teams as they work to break down siloed tools, integrate with multiple data sources and gain increased visibility across their organization. Current rigid processes often aren’t allowing these teams to overcome these business challenges.”

Swimlane’s partner ecosystem established for financial institutions empowers organizations to proactively address these challenges through new strategic partnerships built on a foundation of automation. Customers can leverage the power of Swimlane’s AI-enabled low-code security automation to create a company-wide system of record.

The partner ecosystem consists of three core pillars that address the top pervasive challenges faced by the finance industry:

• Compliance – Through a partnership with a leading IT governance, risk and compliance platform, Swimlane is automating continuous compliance enforcement. The partnership will automate across compliance collection and audit reporting for finance organizations. This enhances stakeholder visibility into the security organizations’ controls for multiple types of compliance requirements. 
• External Threat Landscape Visibility and Monitoring – Swimlane has partnered with CYFIRMA, an expert in external threat management where attack surface monitoring, digital risk discovery, third-party risk and cyber-intelligence are analyzed on a single platform to give defenders the much-needed insights to imminent attacks. Together we are decoding threats and mitigating risks at scale to secure financial services organizations. 
• Fraud Protection – Swimlane has also partnered with one of the world’s leading fraud protection companies to streamline fraud investigation with automated data collection, monitoring and reporting. By leveraging data from fraud prevention platforms, Swimlane provides real-time visibility to fraud and security teams, enabling greater collaboration and reducing risk.

“The financial services industry requires best-of-breed solutions and integrations from vendors that are true subject matter experts. Swimlane brings this together in one ecosystem,” said James Brear, CEO of Swimlane. “Given the high cost and frequency of a breach today, it’s critical that financial services organizations take a proactive approach to ensure the ROI of their security function and protect themselves from the cost of downtime and risk of reputational damage.”

“Swimlane is one of the tools that actually allows us to buy time,” said Jonathan Kennedy, CISO of InComm Payments. “And when you talk about the velocity of attacks that occur today, time is the most valuable asset that you have. Swimlane gives you a very robust look into the environment and gives your analysts the ability to work efficiently within a single platform.”

Key Resources:

• To download the State of Security for Financial Services Report, visit https://swimlane.com/resources/reports/state-of-cyber-security-for-financial-services/
• To learn more about Swimlane’s work in the finance industry, visit https://swimlane.com/solutions/industries/banking-finance-insurance/ 
• To learn more about Swimlane’s work with Incomm, visit https://swimlane.com/case-study/incomm-payments/ 
• To learn more about how to become a Swimlane partner, visit https://swimlane.com/partners/#become-a-partner 
• To learn more about Swimlane Turbine, visit https://swimlane.com/swimlane-turbine/ 

About Swimlane

Swimlane is the leader in AI-enabled, low-code security automation. Swimlane unifies security operations in-and-beyond the SOC into a single system of record to help reduce process and data fatigue while quantifying business value and security effectiveness. The cloud-scale Turbine platform combines human and machine data into actionable intelligence for security leaders.  For more information, visit swimlane.com.

About Omdia

Omdia is a leading research and advisory group focused on the technology industry. With clients operating in over 120 countries, Omdia provides market-critical data, analysis, advice, and custom consulting.

Omdia was formed in 2020 following the merger of IHS Markit Tech, Tractica, Ovum and Heavy Reading. Sitting at the heart of the Informa Tech portfolio, Omdia reaches over four million technology decision makers, influencers and practitioners that form part of the wider Informa Tech community and has specialist research practices focusing on Enterprise IT, AI, Internet of Things, Communications Service Providers, Cybersecurity, Components & Devices, Media & Entertainment and Government & Manufacturing.

For more information about Omdia, please visit https://omdia.tech.informa.com/.