15th June 2021, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain | The General Council for Islamic Banks and Financial
Institutions (CIBAFI), the global umbrella of Islamic financial institutions, convened
today a webinar on “Cybersecurity: A Rising Risk with Important Implications
on the Financial Sector’s Resilience”. The webinar was held in
collaboration with Darktrace.
CIBAFI’s Global Islamic Banker’s
Survey (GIBS) Report, reported on banks’ growing concerns over Cybersecurity
risk due to the movement towards digitalization and automation in the Islamic
banking industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has further advanced this digital transformation
as banks adopted financial technologies to meet the increasing demand for
online products and services. Moreover, banks are facing some operational
challenges that contributed to an increased Cybersecurity risk, for example,
business execution and system failures as well as business disruption due to
changes in employee working arrangements.
These facts encouraged CIBAFI to
organize this webinar with Darktrace which gathered financial services industry
and subject matter experts from different countries. The webinar discussed the major
threats and the main factors that have posed serious challenges to the
Cybersecurity in digital banking sector.
CIBAFI Secretary General, Dr. Abdelilah Belatik inaugurated the webinar. In his speech, Dr. Belatik highlighted how the continuous implementation of technology in various aspects of the financial institutions’ operations has also heightened the risk of cybersecurity. The Secretary General also stressed on CIBAFI’s commitment to raise awareness on these increasingly important aspects of the industry by continuously delivering a series of events, issuing publications and establishing the CIBAFI Innovation and Technology Group.
The first session witnessed a
presentation from Darktrace on different useful cases on how digital
acceleration has reshaped the threat landscape; what are the major
cybersecurity challenges faced by financial institutions; and the different
approaches to security in finance.
The webinar concluded with a panel
session on “Neutralizing Cyberattacks: Strategies, Measures, and Trend” where
Darktrace, along with other industry experts examined the growing in speed,
sophistication, and scale of cyberattacks. With offensive Artificial
Intelligence (AI) on the horizon, the financial services sector will continue
to be challenged to protect sensitive data and systems. As threats emerge, it
is clear that a new approach to cybersecurity is needed. Therefore, this
interactive panel session has witnessed an experience sharing on the current strategies
and approaches to counter cyberattacks by financial institutions and studied
their weaknesses to identify new approaches for better resilience against
cyberattacks. The session witnessed an interactive dialogue among the
panelists: Mr. Mirza Asrar Baig, Founder and CEO, EDX Labs; Mr. Roly Stride, Regional Director for Middle East & Africa at
Darktrace; and Mr. Murat Gökten, Head of Enterprise Architecture,
AlbarakaTech Global. The discussion was moderated by Mr. Rachid Ettaai, Senior Research Analyst,
CIBAFI.
The above CIBAFI initiative aims
to raise awareness and support sustainability and innovation within the Islamic
finance services industry (IFSI). CIBAFI will continue providing specific
activities and initiatives which promote sustainability best practices and
facilitate cooperation between members and institutions of common interest.