Banco Solidario: Optimizing Data Classification with Kriptos for a Secure and Reliable Future
By
Alfonso Villalba
April 2, 2024
-
5
min read
+26
years in the industry
+523K
Customers
+1.4K
Teams within the organization
Country
Ecuador
Industry
Financial Services
Estrategic impact
Elimination of time-consuming manual labor in data classification, improving operational efficiency.
Banco Solidario is a financial institution with more than 26 years of experience in the Ecuadorian market. Its mission to support microenterprises and provide credit to economically vulnerable people has made the bank a great ally for Ecuadorians, disbursing loans to more than 523,000 customers, a number that supports its solidity and commitment to the welfare of creditors of its services.
The Challenge: A Herculean Task in Manual Data Classification
For Banco Solidario, as for all companies in the financial sector, it is important to protect information and keep any type of risk to a minimum to ensure the reliability and continuity of its business. That is where the classification of the bank's data became a titanic project that implied that Daniel Patricio Aguas Bolaños, Information Security Officer, had to do a purely manual task, going area by area generating Excel files to guarantee the traceability of the information contained in each of the organization's divisions.
This process was very time-consuming, as it generated an excessive workload and long delivery times while he organized the agendas with all the departments to ensure results.
The Solution: Kriptos, the Strategic Ally for Optimizing Data Classification
In 2018, Daniel decided to start looking for tools that would allow him to optimize this task, and found Kriptos. After performing the DEMOS, he was able to perceive immediate results, having the ability to see how the totality of his organization's documents were classified in just a few days, thus allowing him to have a much more complete picture of what was happening in the entity's operation.
What made Kriptos the definitive solution that Daniel was looking for were 2 fundamental factors that he needed to solve in his organization to be able to manage his data: the time cut in the exercise and having a single centralized console to validate the information found.
Having visibility of all documents within the organization is something that was not previously possible for Daniel; in his sessions with the team during his manual classification processes, he had to rely on the judgment of his leaders to label a document based on what was inside the file, but that record was a very small sample compared to the volume of information that was created on a daily basis.
"Today Kriptos allows the bank to comply with 85% of the regulations, and this is a huge relief for the bank, giving it the opportunity to concentrate its efforts on other strategies, and on other risks." - Daniel Patricio Aguas Bolaños, Information Security Officer at Banco Solidario.
Impact and Benefits of Kriptos in Banco Solidario
Operational Efficiency: Having 100% of the classified documents of an area in one day, knowing that these documents contain personal data and having the possibility of knowing with whom this information was shared was an extremely important added value to help the different areas of the bank to make decisions regarding the management of the data they had internally and to improve the policies based on the reality of each division of the bank.
Workload Relief: After the first few days of classification using Kriptos, they were able to give the operational risk area a break, since all areas of the company began to delegate their classification to the automatic work of the Classification Software. In this way, employees were able to dedicate themselves to other functions that would allow them to delve deeper into other aspects of their work and let the tool automatically take care of reporting new developments without further monitoring.
Visibility and Control: During the first Information Security Committee that Daniel held after implementing the Kriptos software, he noticed the surprised faces of his team when they saw the amount of classified documents that had been achieved: more than 1 million classified documents in a very short time, which gave them very accurate percentages of how the sensitivity of the data was distributed within the bank.
Regulatory Compliance and Strategic Impact
Regulatory Impact: 85% compliance with Ecuadorian regulations.
For Banco Solidario, the regulatory law is the Ecuadorian Superintendency of Banks, specifically the Codification of Resolutions of the Superintendency of Banks and Insurance of the Banking Board, being the regulation by which the bank is regulated and seeks full compliance with the stipulated.
Kriptos becomes an ally for the fulfillment of this standard in the country. Daniel can consult directly on the Kriptos web platform some data and deliver them to the regulatory entities to certify that the Bank is developing the necessary actions to stay in line with the standard.
When there is a visit from an auditor, Daniel feels at ease when presenting the dashboards and reports that Kriptos provides, because he knows that there are no comments. In addition to this, Daniel says that for some time now he has not received any observations or objections, because they have a lot of information from which they can certify the adequacy of the classification exercise that the bank has been doing with Kriptos for 4 years now.
Strategic Impact: Competitive benefits by demonstrating high standards of security and information protection.
The group has a subsidiary that performs sampling analysis, and this service participates in bids with different companies; by demonstrating the security and information protection controls in place within the business group, this becomes a determining factor that allows it to advance and position itself as the best option for companies that require its services.
Banco Solidario recommendation
Daniel recommends to those who are thinking about a sorting solution: "Don't waste time, don't evaluate any further. I think Kriptos is a solution that adapts quickly, is implemented and starts its classification and labeling in a matter of days. We have an organization of more or less 1400 computers; with the number of computers we have licensed we already have visibility of all classified information within the institution. It allows you to implement controls to protect sensitive information, to identify in which areas sensitive information is located. It makes us turn our control solutions prioritizing these areas".
And he adds: "After you implement Kriptos, you just sit back and watch it do its job, without having to overexecute additional efforts".
Finally, regarding Kriptos' service, Daniel points out the support to his organization, not only through the product, but also through guidance and support: "There is an additional issue: the team behind Kriptos. There is not only the commercial area that sells and implements; when I have needed support of any kind, whether commercial or operational, we always have the answer and the necessary sessions are held to solve the concerns and needs. There is a quality team that, from anywhere, is present for doubts and maintenance of the tool".
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