Cisco and WWT Address Growing Compliance and Security Challenges Facing Banking IT Leaders

Our Cooperation Targets Increasing SEC Compliance Violations and the Rise of AI-Powered Threats and Deepfake Technologies

Table of Contents:

Challenges of a Banking IT Leader
The Critical Role of User Experience
The Opportunity for Banking IT Leaders
World Wide Technology and Cisco Collaborate to Serve Global Financial Firms
Partnering with Banking IT Leaders

Banking IT leaders who oversee communications infrastructure face mounting pressures. Banking communications see a combination of greater SEC oversight and the surge in AI related threats, specifically the growth of deepfake technologies.

Challenges of a Banking IT Leader

SEC fines to banks and financial institutions continue to add up. Just in February 2024, the SEC fined 16 financial firms more than $81 million for using personal texts for business purposes. These fines are on top of over $1.7 billion in fines levied for compliance failures since 2021 ^[i].

At the same time, banks face higher risks from an increasing number of attack vectors ^[ii]. Digitization of bank processes and communications increases exposure to risks from AI-powered technologies such as deepfake audio and video scams.

Deepfake technologies are contributing to an ever-increasing number of bank losses. In February 2024, a Hong Kong bank lost over $25 million through fraudulent payments to five different accounts. These fraudulent transactions stemmed from a video conference call featuring several AI-generated participants ^[iii].

The Critical Role of User Experience

A critical complexity facing banking IT leaders is that communications methods and media are subject to user preference and practices. Some banking clients prefer to text their bank representatives. Some prefer to call the contact center. Some prefer to start on a web app from their client portal. And then there are internal bank employees who bring the same range of communications preferences and options.

As a result, IT leaders face the daunting challenge of bringing compliance controls and security protections to a wide number of different devices, applications, and media types. Users have strong preferences, especially around mobile devices. They often go around formal guidelines and requirements to use their preferred devices or applications, leading to both compliance and security vulnerabilities.

To make meaningful progress, banking IT leaders need to address the technical, operational, and user experience elements of their communications solutions.

The Opportunity for Banking IT Leaders

To bring the needed compliance and regulatory requirements and address growing attack surfaces, banks are considering the following:

Adopt cloud-based platforms to 1) access the most advanced technology and 2) consolidate systems to streamline operational costs
Apply AI technologies to 1) automate complicated communication processes, 2) handle vast sums of data to more efficiently and efficiently oversee communications, and 3) thwart some of the same technologies being used to implement scams, e.g. “deepfakes”

Given banks’ existing infrastructure investments, sophisticated IT environments, and highly advanced in-house IT expertise, the adoption of cloud-based technologies requires careful planning, rigor in vendor selection and the utmost in deployment flexibility.

World Wide Technology and Cisco Collaborate to Serve Global Financial Firms

WWT and Cisco are proud to provide services and solutions for the largest and most sophisticated financial institutions. To help address the challenges facing banking leaders, WWT and Cisco will work more closely together and make substantial investments to help banks close the gaps in compliance and security, in the following areas:

Join forces on the build-out of the new WWT AI Proving Ground. The AI Proving Ground is a state-of-the-art lab environment within WWT’s Advanced Technology Center designed to accelerate the ability of clients and partners to experiment, test, compare and train AI solutions with hands-on access to the latest AI hardware, software and reference architectures — all in a secure, scalable and transparent manner.
Partner on the rollout of Webex Go with AT&T, and the advanced capabilities of products such as Webex Connect. This will provide compliance and security capabilities for company-managed mobile devices in concert with banks’ broader communications systems, e.g., PBX and SMS.
Work together on a set of solution templates for the next generation of compliant and secure communications to simplify the path forward for banking IT leaders. These templates combine WWT consulting and implementation services, the Webex product portfolio (Calling, Contact Center, Connect, Webex Go, etc.) and the broader Cisco solutions set (Networking, Security, and Hardware).

Through these investments, WWT and Cisco plan to provide greater transparency to banking leaders about their options, speed implementations, and accelerate the realization of benefits.

Partnering with Banking IT Leaders

Bank IT leaders operate in a complex environment and face a wide range of different communications requirements and challenges. These challenges sit across multiple layers including network, application, and at the human and operational layer. WWT and Cisco recognize that helping banks address these complex challenges is not something that should be done in a vacuum. Any solution will require the engagement of leaders and an ongoing dialog.

WWT and Cisco are committed to address communications compliance and security for financial firms through a collaborative approach with banking IT leaders. We are reaching out to contacts and seeking to take current relationships a level deeper.

If you are a banking leader facing some of these challenges, we encourage you learn more: