Diasoft, a leading provider of IT solutions for the global financial services market, has signed a partnership agreement with Rostelecom-Solar, a national provider of cyber security technologies and part of the Rostelecom Group. The partnership is aimed at the creation of the banking segment of the National Cyber Range that will be used by domestic banks to practice protection against cyber threats.

The Cyber Range is one of the largest information security projects that is being implemented in 2020 under the “Digital Economy” National Program. This task was entrusted to Rostelecom, which involved its subsidiary company Rostelecom-Solar to implement the project. The Cyber Range consists of several segments that imitate standard infrastructures of companies from different industries, including the financial services and banking sector.

To ensure that the cyber training of security experts was as close to real conditions as possible, the virtual infrastructure of the Cyber Range must comprise the full range of banking systems: the core banking and its supplementary components. The core banking system will be represented by Diasoft’s core banking solution that is widely used by Russian banks. Among Diasoft customers, there are more than half of the TOP 100 Russian banks, 27 of 61 foreign banks operating in Russia, leading investment, asset management and insurance companies, private pension funds and MFIs.

“According to Solar JSOC, the center of monitoring and response to cyber threats, every fifth cyber attack in 2019 was aimed at banks. Attackers constantly improve their methods and tools, and the penetration of hackers into the infrastructure of any financial institution is just a matter of time. That is why, the most important thing is to focus on early detection of attacks and ensure quick response and effective counter measures to them. Even banks that use external services for monitoring and response to cyber attacks, prefer to carry out technical counter measures on their own. That is why hands-on training of experts of internal information security services becomes an essential component of cyber security,” commented Mikhail Klimov, Director for Development of the National Cyber Range, Rostelecom-Solar. 

According to Diasoft experts, automation of the banking business involves creation of multiple points of interaction between different systems, which inevitably leads to appearance of vulnerabilities. That is why the company enthusiastically welcomed Rostelecom’s initiative for improvement of security of the national financial services industry.

Besides cyber training, the virtual infrastructure of the Cyber Range will be applied for stress testing of domestic solutions that are used by banks in complex information security projects.

In the future, Rostelecom’s digital platform will be enhanced with three regional Cyber Range centers in the Russian Far East, the Volga District and the Southern Federal District. This will make the Cyber Range the largest project in this information security segment and help to improve the security of all key Russian industries.