Intelligent CISO Issue 53 | Page 49

BBy shifting to
a cloud-native architecture , we could generate greater business value and deliver on customer expectations more quickly .
FEATURE
Bayad ( CIS Bayad Center , Inc .) is the largest multichannel payment platform in the Philippines and the country ’ s pioneer in outsourced payment collection .
Bayad offers a suite of solutions ranging from dependable bill collection for corporate partners to reliable , convenient payment services for the

BBy shifting to

a cloud-native architecture , we could generate greater business value and deliver on customer expectations more quickly .

public . Bayad emphasises security of sensitive data and high availability , which allow businesses and customers to confidently accomplish their financial and commercial interests .
Bayad uses Aqua ’ s portfolio of cloudnative security solutions to ensure security and compliance of its digital wallet platform , biller aggregator service and bills payment platforms .
Mel Migriño , CISO , Meralco Group ( owner of Bayad )
The challenge
Bayad has been investing in a shift to cloud-native application methodologies , using container and serverless technologies to increase agility , scalability and resilience of key applications .
As part of this initiative , the organisation must enable developers to focus on writing code while eliminating roadblocks to secure deployment . Operating in a highly regulated industry required Bayad to overcome some critical challenges , including :
• Ensure that stakeholders , from development to security , have visibility into the risk posture and compliance status of development artifacts , running applications and cloud environments .
• Detect and resolve information leakage across the application and cloud ecosystem .
• Facilitate an evolution from legacy systems that are unable to meet the growing demands and expectations of the market .
• Establish unified security standards and security control points for more than a thousand functions across multiple web applications , mobile applications and APIs .
• Support compliance requirements of the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas ( Central Bank ) and PCI-DSS certification .
By shifting to a cloud-native architecture , the company could generate greater business value and deliver on customer expectations more quickly .
“ Going serverless enables us to run our new Bayad applications smoothly ,” said Lawrence Ferrer , President and CEO , Bayad , “ paving the way to an improved payment experience for Filipinos as they continue to navigate their way in the new normal .”
The evaluation
When evaluating potential tools to overcome Bayad ’ s challenges and elevate its standard for cloud-native security , stakeholders from the cybersecurity department identified solution requirements and selection criteria . These included :
• Security controls that support automation across agile DevOps workflows and cloud-native development pipelines .
• Extensive integration support for a variety of Amazon tools and services , including AWS CodePipeline , AWS CodeBuild and Amazon Landing Zone .
• Ability to analyse container images and prioritise vulnerabilities for remediation .
• Ability to detect security risks in serverless functions , supporting Lambda and Fargate .
• Ability to detect , prevent and respond to anomalous activity at runtime .
“ Given Bayad ’ s direction for cloud adaptation , we had to prioritise security controls in this new environment to ensure that the environment remains secure and intact ,” said Mel Migriño , CISO , Meralco Group ( owner of Bayad ).
Bayad ’ s evaluation included market research to establish a viable short list of potential vendors , followed by providing requirements to candidates , collecting detailed responses from each and accomplishing a cost benefit analysis .
Migriño continued : “ Based on the assessment of our team , Aqua offers the capabilities that best match our environment from containers all the way to serverless .”
Additionally , the team regarded the strong solution competency and rapid response to communications by Aqua ’ s local partner as positively influential in their evaluation .
The solution
Bayad selected Aqua ’ s cloud-native application protection platform to secure its Digital Transformation . The chosen Aqua solutions and critical capabilities include :
• Container image vulnerability scanning
• Serverless function security scanning
• Cloud security posture management ( CSPM )
• Cloud workload protection and runtime security www . intelligentciso . com
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