Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is starting to be utilized everywhere and throughout many industries. One industry in particular that has shown massive benefits by using RPA is cybersecurity. Regardless of what an organization does, there is a lot of critical and private information that it’s trusted with. Whether it’s healthcare, a finance department in a Fortune 500, or a financial institution, they all have the responsibility of ensuring that sensitive data does not get into the hands of cybercriminals. That is when companies can choose to use RPA to help aid against future cyberattacks.
What is Cybersecurity Automation?
Cyber security automation helps to reduce the volume of threats and allows for faster prevention of new and unknown threats. Technology is always improving and so are automation practices. By the same token, cyber criminals are also improving their techniques, especially when it comes to financial cyber incursions. Industry experts refer to new automation tools as Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) products, composed of RPA, custom-developed software, and code that automates processes and performs analyses.
SOAR products work alongside other security tools and carry out specific tasks in response to known cyber threats. RPA tools have a wider variety of processes to be automated. Custom-developed software and code can automate every analysis and often is used for fixing a unique challenge within an organization.
SOAR, RPA, and custom-developed software gather data intelligence, perform analysis, and either take automated action or alert an employee to take further action.
Benefits of RPA for Cybersecurity
Companies from small to large have already adopted or are starting to invest in RPA to help protect their cybersecurity, mitigate risk, and meet compliance regulations. Implementing automation in your organization allows cybersecurity teams to focus on tasks that are more complex. The bots can complete the routine and repeatable work and the cybersecurity team can focus on resolving the critical and technical issues that will lead to minimizing organizational risks.
Some examples include:
Remediation Activities: RPA will assist your technical team by identifying deficiencies and providing insights into your organization which will lead to fewer vulnerabilities.
Automation Development and Engineering: Cyber security programs that require their own resources for automation design and implementation will use RPA as an important tool to help the cybersecurity team.
Engineering and Architecture: RPA’s help will allow the cybersecurity team to focus on designing and implementing cybersecurity solutions (such as zero-trust) within the organization.
How RPA is The Future of Cybersecurity
By adding more systems, technologies, programs and networks to businesses, there needs to be more ways to protect them. Especially with exchanging so much of our information daily, securing all that sensitive data is more important than ever. Below are a few ways how RPA can help reduce cybersecurity risks and will be implemented in the future of cybersecurity protection.
1. Minimizing the Number of Potential Cyberattacks
RPA helps to defend and reduce cyber-attacks through intensified data encryption. It is warned that this is not a work-forever solution, but is good in the interim. Remember RPA should constantly be monitored so unauthorized people do not get their hands on private data.
Why do so many companies highly appreciate RPA? The answer is eliminating the risk of human factors. Human factors can include unintentional errors. Fewer errors and mistakes translate to a better and faster output of work.
Another reason RPA is appreciated is because of RPA Center of Excellence (CoE) and a dedicated team that monitors scheduled tasks. The team ensures protection from malware and viruses. They also protect and strengthen policies to reduce business risks.
2. Safeguarding from Unwanted Attacks
RPA can help with monitoring and defending against unwanted attacks. For example, if an employee mistakenly clicks an unfamiliar link, RPA will step in to protect if there is a virus associated with the link. The bots can stop the intrusion and the spread of the virus across the entire organization’s computer network.
RPA can conduct rapid analysis of malware alerts and choose the most relevant data to make decisions on when and how to address each threat. In case of human errors occurring, RPA resembles a bodyguard, however digitally.
3. Assisting the Cybersecurity team
RPA helps by assisting the organization’s cybersecurity team so that the human workers can focus on more significant tasks. Human employees can focus their attention on high-value assignments, while RPA bots manage routine audits and create daily or weekly reports. RPA helps to perform routine tasks without mistakes and faster than a human worker. Human workers can then work on analytical and strategic tasks to help boost productivity.
4. Eliminating Unauthorized Access
It is important to have protection from employees’ accidental errors or unforeseen hacker attacks. RPA is perfect for restricting unauthorized users from accessing and managing confidential information. These RPA bots can grant access to specific people with the right credentials to access confidential data. These bots can upgrade the layer of encryption for more secure data usage to help prevent any attacks from outside the organization.
5. Securing the Safety of Sensitive Data
Look at RPA as a very high-tech assistant that works beside all your team members. RPA can ensure your company stays compliant with regulations, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). If your organization’s system crashes or needs to be rebooted, RPA bots can generate backup copies of core processes. The bots can access information quickly from off-site areas and effortlessly backup data.
6. The Speed of Identifying a Cyber Attack
Let’s face it, automation and robots are a lot quicker than humans when it comes to identifying cyber attacks. The faster an incoming attack can be identified, the faster it can be stopped. If a cyber attack does occur, RPA can help minimize damage by mitigating its threats. To potentially prevent future attacks, RPA can assist with performing forensics and building new defenses.
Contact K2 University to find out how we can help
Using RPA offers many advantages to organizations that want to secure their data. RPA minimizes threat detection and response time through automated detection and alert notifications. This technology also helps to keep security up-to-date by automatically installing updates, providing around-the-clock security coverage, and taking the responsibility away from IT professionals to complete simple tasks so they can focus on higher-value projects.
At K2 University, we’ve partnered with industry leaders Automation Anywhere to offer RPA Training for Finance Professionals. Our Mastering Bots course offers best practices, certificate guidance, web data management, and chatbot development so you can better serve your customers and employees – find out more.
