The Client – an overview
A leading national bank in India, serving thousands of customers daily, operates across the country through its extensive network of branches, ATMs, and digital banking services, making it vulnerable to potential cyber-attacks. Driven by digital transformation and a commitment to financial inclusion, the bank manages vast volumes of transactional and network data with a steadfast focus on security and compliance. This financial institution held significant amounts of sensitive customer information, including personal credentials, account details, and transactional history. Being aware of the growing cybersecurity risks, it sought to make further investments in advanced security measures to safeguard the existing data and meet regulatory requirements.
Background and Key Challenges
India, ranking among the most targeted countries globally, is witnessing a significant surge in cyber threats, particularly against the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector. Most banks are faced with data breaches, DDoS attacks, ransomware attacks, phishing attacks, AI-driven threats, cloud and endpoint risks, among others, at an unprecedented pace, posing a significant challenge to them. Cyber incidents can severely impact banks and their customers, causing operational disruptions, financial losses, breaches of confidentiality and integrity, reputational damage, and reduced market competitiveness. The security posture of national banks in India is guided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s comprehensive cybersecurity framework, which mandates stringent IT governance, risk management, and incident response protocols.
This National Bank encountered several cybersecurity challenges that had an impact on its security posture as well as readiness in regulatory compliance.
- Limited visibility into security events due to incompatible log source onboarding.
- Absence of early warning mechanisms for credential misuse, VPN compromise, and lateral movement attacks.
- Lack of centralized threat monitoring across multiple branches and applications.
- Inconsistency in compliance and audit reporting, which was due to the existing manual, error-prone process that was followed.
- Misconfigurations in SIEM led to ineffective log ingestion and monitoring gaps.
- Inconsistent business continuity planning raised concerns about resilience during a crisis.
- To establish a centralized, reliable, and intelligent security monitoring system across all its branches and applications in India.
- To improve visibility that enables rapid threat detection across the IT ecosystem of the bank.
- Optimize SIEM performance, reduce false positives, and ensure increased accuracy in threat detection.
- To establish regulatory compliance with RBI’s Cybersecurity Framework as well as internal audit requirements.
- To reduce operational inefficiencies that were caused by manual processes and SIEM misconfigurations.
- To strengthen the bank’s resilience and business continuity in the event of disruptions or cyber incidents.
The Solution: Inspira Enterprise Approach
To address the challenges, the Client partnered with Inspira Enterprise, a global cybersecurity risk management service provider with deep experience in implementing large-scale cybersecurity deployment programs and expertise in delivering modern AI/ML-based SOC. Partnering with Inspira Enterprise, the bank’s engagement focused on optimizing its SIEM environment, enhancing regulatory compliance, and strengthening its overall security monitoring framework.
Inspira’s team of cybersecurity experts reviewed the bank’s existing security architecture and network across the country for the successful rollout of a robust solution. A scalable, secure, and resilient SOC architecture was built on the SIEM Platform, ensuring 24/7×365 fraud visibility, detection, and response capabilities across all branches, ATMs, and online. This engagement involved a structured and phased approach.
- Configurational Gap Assessment
- Performed a deep-dive assessment of the existing SIEM environment.
- Rebuilt SIEM configurations to eliminate inefficiencies and misconfigurations.
- Custom Correlation Rule Development
- Designed and deployed 40+ custom correlation rules to address critical attack scenarios.
- Covered threat vectors such as ATM fraud patterns, privilege escalation attempts, and unauthorized access attempts.
- Custom Parser Development and Log Onboarding
- Built tailored parsers for critical legacy and modern log sources.
- Integrated Core Banking System (CBS), firewalls, antivirus logs, Windows servers, proxy, and ATM switch logs into the SIEM.
- Business Continuity Planning (BCP)
- Developed a robust Business Continuity Plan.
- Validated resilience through Disaster Recovery–Data Center (DR-DC) drill scenarios.
- Compliance Automation
- Designed compliance dashboards aligned with RBI Cybersecurity Framework.
- Automated scheduled reporting for RBI audits, IS audits, and internal reviews.
Outcomes and Benefits
The engagement between the bank and Inspira Enterprise delivered measurable improvements in visibility, resilience, compliance, and operational efficiency.
Enhanced Security Visibility
Custom parsers and correlation rules enabled near real-time detection of credential misuse, VPN anomalies, and lateral movement.
Improved Offense Accuracy
False positives reduced by 65%, allowing SOC teams to focus on genuine threats.
Compliance Automation
Dashboards and automated reports streamlined audit readiness, cutting manual effort and improving consistency for regulatory submissions.
Resilience and Availability
DR-DC drills validated high availability, ensured configuration backup integrity, and strengthened disaster readiness.
Operational Efficiency
Standardized parsing, fine-tuning, and use-case implementation reduced manual troubleshooting efforts and lowered operational overhead.
About Inspira Enterprise
Inspira Enterprise is a global Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence services provider with a presence in North America, ASEAN, the Middle East, Africa, and India. It delivers adaptive, intelligent, and customer-centric solutions to various industries, including Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), Healthcare, Public Sector, Manufacturing, Education, Oil and Gas, and Utilities.
The organization’s expertise in AI-driven cybersecurity enables comprehensive protection against evolving cyber threats to help protect enterprises. It leverages advanced analytics and AI-powered threat detection to offer real-time visibility and proactive risk management, strengthening organizational security. At the core of Inspira’s offerings is iSMART2—an advanced AI-driven platform delivering continuous monitoring, analytics, and actionable insights to mitigate risks and stay ahead of emerging threats.
With 1600+ professionals, Inspira successfully delivers complex transformation projects for 550+ clients. Its AI and cybersecurity capabilities empower businesses to build resilient, future-ready digital ecosystems. Learn more: www.inspiraenterprise.com.
