Best of Both Worlds:  How IBM & VMware can Modernize & Protect Financial Institutions

Introduction

The financial services industry operates in a highly regulated and data-sensitive environment. As organizations in this sector embrace cloud computing, ensuring robust security measures becomes imperative. Recognizing the unique security challenges faced by financial services institutions, IBM and VMware have partnered to deliver comprehensive cloud security solutions tailored to allow the industry to modernize core apps without disruption.   

One jointly developed offering, VMware Regulated Workloads on IBM Cloud for Financial Services, provides the highest industry protection & compliance specifically for your VMware workloads at the click of a button.

Solution Benefits:

• End-to-end protection engineered into infrastructure, keeping VM workloads and data safe
• FS industry compliance & regulatory standards built into the fabric for continuous compliance
• Mitigate breach risk due to workload misconfiguration and version drift vulnerabilities
• Flexible VMware deployment options to support a wide array of VMware compute & tool requirements to mirror your on-premise landscape
• 37% Average TCO Savings and 40-50% Server Consolidation
• Prevent business downtime due to malicious & accidental administrator actions
• Enforce data processing in only approval geographical and logical locations to 
  meet compliance

VMware Regulated Solution Architecture

In this blog post, we will explore how the collaboration between IBM and VMware strengthens cloud security for financial services organizations.

Compliance and Regulatory Adherence:

Financial services organizations must adhere to strict regulatory requirements, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). The partnership between IBM and VMware offers integrated security solutions that help businesses meet these compliance obligations. Only by leveraging the VMware Regulated Workloads on IBM Cloud for Financial Services offering, financial services institutions can implement the highest level of access controls into your VMware estate, data encryption, and audit capabilities.  To meet compliance & regulatory requirements, IBM offers a proprietary tool named Security and Compliance Center that provides continuous compliance of your VMware workloads against +200 regulatory regulations and alerts you whenever a regulation changes or your workload is failing to adhere.  

Protect Data Across the Compute Lifecycle:

Data management is a critical concern for financial services organizations, given the volumes of sensitive customer data they handle. The IBM and VMware collaboration provides comprehensive data protection capabilities that safeguard financial data throughout its lifecycle. IBM harnesses the security strength of their Mainframe technology by embedding HyperProtect Crypto Services into the fabric of IBM Cloud.  In addition, IBM Cloud offers several integrated security tools to protect your VMware workloads:

Through the integration of IBM Cloud Security and VMware’s software-defined data center technologies, businesses can implement advanced encryption, data loss prevention, and secure backup and recovery solutions. These measures help mitigate the risks associated with data breaches, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of financial data.  

Learn More about IBM Confidential Computing for Security Assurance

Advanced Threat Detection and Fraud Prevention:

Financial services institutions are prime targets for cybercriminals seeking to gain unauthorized access to customer accounts and exploit vulnerabilities for financial gain. The combined strengths of IBM and VMware enable organizations to implement advanced threat detection and fraud prevention mechanisms. By leveraging the IBM Cyber Recovery for VMware solution for your VMware environments, financial services organizations can proactively identify and respond to security incidents in real-time. This empowers them to detect and prevent fraudulent activities, protecting both their own assets and their customers’ financial well-being.

Conclusion

IBM and VMware provide financial services organizations with the assurance and support they need to embrace cloud computing securely and effectively in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.  Together, IBM and VMware deliver a comprehensive VMware on IBM Cloud offerings that addresses specific needs of financial services organizations. By integrating IBM Cloud Security with VMware’s virtualization and cloud infrastructure technologies, these institutions can achieve compliance with regulatory requirements, implement secure data management practices, detect and prevent threats and fraud, and ensure resilience and business continuity. 

Try the VMware offering out today!

https://www.ibm.com/cloud/free

For Questions reach out to:

Greg Collins (gregc1@vmware.com)

JD Wells (jdwells@us.ibm.com)