Data is at the heart of everything today, especially cyberattacks

Another dimension of discussion at the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery conference was the whole area of hacktivism and cyberattacks.

We all know that the cybercriminals are organising cybergangs of cyberteenagers to cyberattack the cyberbanks (ed: isn’t that too many cybers for a Friday morning?).

This was illustrated well by the figures I gave yesterday of over 300,000 attacks a day and 7 seriously dangerous attacks a month.  By serious, we mean ones that could bring down the bank.

But then another tweak of nuance came out of this.

The data.

We keep coming back to the data.

Data is there to provide proactive service and augmented marketing capabilities.

Data is there to solve the KYC issue.

Data can provide many layers of overlay for avoiding fraud and customer compromise.

And the data allows the bank to ward off the cyberthreats.

Real-time data analytics can sift through every touchpoint and access point to the bank, and identify any untoward movements in real-time.

This is a criticality of today’s bank.

It’s a hygiene factor.

And it brings us back to this whole perspective of the enterprise view of the bank.

It is no longer good enough to talk about ‘dashboards’ or ‘management information systems’.

As banks have become digital, the data is their most critical piece of the financial puzzle.

Money is data.

Customers depositing any form of data in the bank are depositing a form of monetary value.

I’ve discussed that so many times before, but it is why I claim that banks like Fidor Bank are showing the way.

Fidor Bank accepts deposits of World of Warcraft Gold and Bitcoins because these are forms of value.

In the same way that euros and dollars can be deposited, the customer of the digital age will want to deposit any data that they perceive has value.

And as the bank moves towards digitisation, it has to be fit for that customer by using their data to service and protect the customer more effectively, as well as to service and protect the bank more effectively.

In other words, a bank that is not sifting through the millions of access points to their data in real-time at an enterprise view for opportunities and threats is a bank that is no longer fit for the digital age.

Banks may be fit for banking in a physical world but, in a digital world, the bank has to be 100% bulletproof by being nimble, alert and brilliant with data.

That is what the Digital Bank is all about, and if your bank does not believe it can meet the challenge of being bulletproof, then rethink your strategy.