Assuring Cloud Security and Compliance for Financial Services Companies

With financial services institutions (FSIs) migrating more and more workloads to the cloud to improve scalability, agility, and cost efficiency, the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) is paramount. This makes adhering to strict regulatory requirements surrounding workload security a top priority.

Network visibility and multidimensional threat detection and protection capabilities within the cloud environment are the keys to maintaining compliance and cloud cybersecurity standards. NETSCOUT and Palo Alto Networks have created an integrated solution to assure security and compliance with multiple cloud providers, most notably AWS.

Create Joint Business Value with an Integrated Cloud Security Solution

There are three main areas in the joint solution created by NETSCOUT, Palo Alto Networks, and AWS that create unbeatable value for financial institutions:

• Streamlined compliance management: The joint solution reduces the time and complexity required to create, review, and consume compliance reports. With NETSCOUT solutions leveraging continuous network visibility and multidimensional threat detection capabilities, FSIs can easily and efficiently address key regulatory compliance requirements, including Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Bank Secrecy Act, and more.
• Automation of security policies: FSIs can take advantage of NETSCOUT capabilities to streamline policy management and create consistency in security enforcement across new virtual private clouds (VPCs) and AWS accounts.
• Enhanced security posture: Through its advanced Omnis vCyberStream network sensors deployed within AWS environments, NETSCOUT powers continuous network traffic monitoring for FSIs. This enables proactive identification and blocking of command and control connections and data exfiltration attempts per the MITRE ATT&CK Framework. Through this approach, FSIs greatly reduce the risk of data breaches and ensure strong protection of PII. This, paired with Palo Alto Networks' ML-Powered Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) and Panorama, creates a synergistic solution to protect sensitive information. The threat intelligence fed into the NGFW is processed by machine learning (ML) and deep-learning (DL) algorithms to stop malware in real time because the NGFW can process data at "line speed."

Addressing Three Key Customer Concerns

• Proactive threat prevention: FSIs must proactively safeguard sensitive financial data and prevent security breaches. Advanced multidimensional threat detection from NETSCOUT enables this proactivity with continuous network traffic monitoring within the AWS cloud environment. This empowers FSIs to mitigate cyberthreats in real time and conduct historical investigations, reducing the risk of data breaches and the regulatory penalties associated with them.
• Streamlined incident response: When an FSI enables rapid cloud network detection and response (NDR) to security incidents, it mitigates potential risks and minimizes the impact of breaches. Thanks to NETSCOUT's integration with AWS Security Hub, FSIs can centralize security alerts and policy violation notifications into the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series NGFW, streamlining incident response and enforcement of blocking rules and enhancing their security posture in AWS.
• Accurate compliance reporting: Accurately tracking all network activity, changes, and misconfigurations helps FSIs facilitate efficient compliance reporting and ensures adherence to regulatory requirements.

Three Ways NETSCOUT Helps Power the Joint Solution

• Threat detection and compliance alerts: NETSCOUT Omnis Cyber Intelligence (OCI) provides advanced multidimensional threat detection capabilities, including compliance detections. These alert FSIs about known vulnerable protocols and custom policies that can be mapped to key applications. Leveraging these capabilities helps FSIs proactively identify and address security risks to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and industry standards.
• Continuous network visibility: vCyberStream and OCI work together to provide FSIs with continuous network visibility within AWS cloud environments. FSIs can identify and analyze potential security threats in real time, ensuring proactive threat prevention and mitigation. The scalability provided by vCyberStream network sensors is unmatched, allowing FSIs to instrument their entire network footprint beyond the cloud, including private data centers, interior networks, colocations, and network perimeters in addition to the AWS cloud.
• Integration with AWS Security Hub: By seamlessly integrating with AWS Security Hub, NETSCOUT enables FSIs to streamline incident response processes and enforce blocking rules via Palo Alto Network's Panorama, further enhancing their cloud cybersecurity posture.

Three Ways Palo Alto Networks Helps Power the Joint Solution

• "Segment/allow" applications for security and compliance: FSIs can block lateral movement throughout their network by controlling application communication across different subnets with segment and allow listing policies within the Palo Alto Networks solution.
• Application visibility for informed security decisions: Using VM-Series NGFW, FSIs can accomplish clear application visibility across all ports, empowering security teams with far more relevant information about the cloud environment to enhance policy decisions.
• Policy consistency via centralized management: Palo Alto Networks' Panorama enables security teams to gain centralized network security management for VM-Series firewalls across multiple cloud environments in addition to physical security appliances, allowing for policy cohesion and consistency.

Three Ways AWS Helps Power the Joint Solution

• Automatic security checks against best practices and standards: FSIs can get automated feedback on account-level configuration and security standards based on AWS Security Hub best practices, calculated into security scores to get pointed suggestions for improving security practices.
• Reduced effort to collect and prioritize findings: AWS Security Hub correlates data from integrated AWS services and partner products, including OCI alerts, to help teams prioritize the most important alerts.
• Consolidated view of findings across accounts and providers: With AWS Security Hub, teams can see the security findings comprising all accounts and partner products in one place to streamline data analysis.

How NETSCOUT, Palo Alto Networks, and AWS Fit Together

Thanks to the joint solution from three industry leaders, cloud security in AWS environments has never been easier to assure and more efficient for FSI security teams. Take control of digital transformation initiatives and make sure your AWS cloud remains secure with NETSCOUT vCyberStream and OCI, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series NGFW and Panorama, and AWS Security Hub.

Learn more about assuring cloud security and compliance.