Age of Automation: Bank-grade Security Equipped To Neutralise Cyber Threats

With the rapid mushrooming of technologies, increasing cyberattacks remain a constant threat. Like any other technology, Automation too can be a victim of these attacks. Software bots work on confidential data, which if compromised, can cause millions of dollars in damage. However, there are several risk mitigation procedures in place to keep the threats at bay and create an ‘airtight environment’ for automation processes to operate smoothly. 

IT industry Leaders share their perspectives about the possible cybersecurity threats and how to keep them in check.

Cyberthreats Lurk Around:

Automation is as vulnerable to the risks of cyberattacks as any other tech and the best course of action is to safeguard and take timely measures.

Orient Electric’s CIO and AVP for IT, Manzar Abbas defined Automation as a “vehicle which has many access authorisations pre-built into it”. He said, “What happens if it goes into the systems and the financial books and takes data from there? If anything that has so much access to information is hacked, it will have serious repercussions.”

Ransomware can be a major threat to automation as well. “It is unimaginable as to what can happen should ransomware piggyback into the RPA, where we have given so much information. Therefore, it is imperative to have a detailed vulnerability assessment and penetration testing (VAPT) of the systems done,” Abbas added.

While automation service providers may be failsafe, their own products might not be as safe. Reflecting on this, JK Tyre’s CDIO, Sharad Kumar Agarwal remarked, “When a company has a product that is not as secure, it opens room for the like of piggybacking. If that happens, automation, which is a mass facilitator, can transform into a mass-destruction weapon.”

Agreeing with this, Hero Future Energies’ Head of IT, Vinod Sharma, highlighted that even if a company manages to ward off all the external cybersecurity threats, the threat that remains “within the room” is equally potent. 

‘Bank-grade Security’ Keep Threats At Bay:

Software companies are confident that they have foolproof security in place to keep the systems safe. Automation Anywhere’s Director of Sales Engineering & Knowledge Services, Amit Mathur, underlined that the company takes security threats very seriously

“As an organisation, we take data security and confidentiality as the heart of what we do. Data confidentiality has our highest priority. We have the highest level of certification, which is equivalent to bank-grade security in terms of information and data privacy. Everything remains airtight to ensure data protection,” explained Mathur.

As far as security threats from within the organisation are concerned, he added that Automation Anywhere has “very strong system checks and balances” in place. “There are protocols around passwords and only a certain set of people have access. We have governance in place. This helps mitigate the security risk to a great extent,” he added.

Though cyber risks remain a concern for automation, as of now, there seem to be enough locks in place to defend against these security threats.