The Client – an overview
The Client is a leading financial institution in Kenya, East Africa, that relies on digitalization and operates in the corporate and retail banking space, offering a full range of services. It holds high volumes of customer data, such as personal credentials and transactional history. Being well aware of the cybersecurity risks, the organization had implemented several security measures. With the growing digital ecosystem and customer base, it wanted to further strengthen its security posture and regulatory compliance by upgrading its Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform.
Background and Key Challenges
In recent years, with the acceleration in digital transformation, Kenya’s Banking and Financial Services Sector has become an attractive target to cybercriminals, with organizations constantly battling with cybersecurity challenges. Most banks are faced with ransomware attacks, cloud security risks, supply chain attacks, and insider threats, among others. These institutions are under growing pressure to ensure their security measures keep up with their digital transformation initiatives. Advanced attack types, surging attack volumes, growing financial losses, widening skill gaps, and the need for a stronger compliance posture were some of the challenges the organization encountered. The organization was compelled to step up its SIEM capabilities to achieve ideal cybersecurity outcomes.
- Inadequate ROI from SIEM: Operational complexities and difficulty in tuning and optimization brought about obstacles for the organization to effectively realize the ROI of the SIEM solution.
- Complexities in onboarding and integration: Diverse data and data sources, in addition to huge volumes of data, contributed to the complexities in onboarding and integrating data into the SIEM, leading to delays in threat detection.
- Alert fatigue: SOC analysts were overwhelmed with the immense volume of threats that led to alert fatigue and burnout, contributing to missing genuine threats and increasing the risk of a security breach.
- Pressure of meeting Regulatory and Compliance: Failing to meet the regulatory requirements of the Central Bank of Kenya, PCI-DSS, and other bodies could lead to financial penalties, operational restrictions, and loss of license.
- Limited Regional Threat Visibility: In the process of relying heavily on global threat feeds, the organization was vulnerable to local, region-specific threats.
- To improve the rapid and early detection of internal and external threats.
- To simplify onboarding and integration of diverse data sources.
- To strengthen regulatory compliance with the Central Bank of Kenya and relevant standards.
- To enhance incident response times and operational efficiency.
- To acquire actionable insights through a unified security monitoring platform.
The Solution: Inspira Enterprise Approach
To address the challenges and achieve the goals, 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 organization’s engagement focused on optimizing its SIEM environment, enhancing regulatory compliance, and strengthening its security posture.
Inspira’s team of cybersecurity experts reviewed the organization’s existing security architecture and network across the country for the successful rollout of a robust solution. This engagement involved a structured and phased approach where the key components of the solution included,
- Early Threat Detection: The Inspira team strengthened the monitoring capabilities to ensure early detection of fraud, account takeover attempts, insider abuse, and cyberattacks.
- Unified Monitoring Dashboard: A single pane of glass for monitoring logs across multiple platforms was established.
- Rule Fine-tuning: The correlation logic was improved and the rules fine-tuned, which contributed to the reduction in false positives, enhancing Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
- Building Threat Hunting Framework: The team built and implemented a threat hunting framework leveraging behavioral analytics to proactively uncover unknown or stealthy threats. This was accomplished by detecting abnormal login times or unusual money transfer patterns.
- Localized Threat Intelligence: Region-specific threat intelligence feeds were integrated to identify locally emerging threats and attack campaigns.
- Compliance Automation: Compliance dashboards and automated reporting were developed and deployed to streamline audits and meet all relevant regulatory standards.
Outcomes and Benefits
The engagement between the organization and Inspira Enterprise delivered measurable improvements across detection, response, threat intelligence, and compliance posture.
Accelerated Incident Response:
80% faster identification and mitigation of security incidents was established.
Improved Threat Visibility:
The process of integration with regional threat intelligence enabled the team to identify local attack patterns.
Enhanced Compliance Posture:
Complete compliance and audit alignment with CBK and PCI-DSS regulatory standards were achieved.
Holistic Risk View:
A unified view of Enterprise Security Risk posture management was accomplished.
Proactive Threat Mitigation:
Successful detection and mitigation of two insider threat incidents within the first three months of deployment were seen.
Reduced Exposure and Impact:
Minimized the likelihood of successful cyberattacks, reputational damage, and regulatory penalties.
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.
