Enhancing Supplier Assurance at a Leading Global Bank

The Bank And The Project 

This global bank is one of the top-ten largest banks in Europe, with assets of well over one trillion Euros (over one trillion dollars). The supplier assurance initiative was spearheaded by the bank's Threat Intelligence team, part of the Chief Security Office (CSO), tasked with ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the firm's information assets.

Supplier assurance is crucial for the bank due to the complex web of interdependencies in today's financial ecosystem. As banks increasingly rely on third-party vendors for critical services, the risks associated with these relationships have grown exponentially. A disruption or security breach in the supplier network can have far-reaching consequences for the bank's operations and reputation. Geopolitical tensions, trade disputes, or regional conflicts can disrupt supply chains, affecting the availability and reliability of critical services. Finally, cybersecurity threats, such as ransomware attacks or data breaches, can compromise suppliers' systems, potentially exposing sensitive bank and customer information. 

To effectively manage these risks, banks must implement robust supplier assurance programs that leverage both internal and external data sources. By combining the myriad of data sources, the bank can create dynamic risk profiles for their suppliers, enabling them to proactively identify and address potential vulnerabilities before they escalate into major incidents.

Challenges

1. Complex Data Integration: Integrating diverse data from multiple internal and external sources to assess supplier risks was a major challenge.
2. Limited Analytical Tools: Existing tools lacked the sophistication required for evolving threat analysis demands.
3. Need for Proactive Threat Management: The dynamic nature of threats called for a flexible, responsive threat management platform.
4. Comprehensive Supplier Risk Assessment: Conducting thorough assessments of supplier risks and their operational impacts was time-consuming and inefficient.

Solution

The bank initiated an Intelligence Transformation Project powered by DataWalk, delivering innovative solutions that addressed their challenges through:

Comprehensive Data Integration

• Unified insights from approximately 12 diverse data sources, including industry-standard risk lists and proprietary data, for a 360-degree view of supplier risks.
• Enabled immediate view and cross-referencing of all datasets via an intuitive business user interface.
  
  

Advanced No-Code Analytical Platform

• Empowered business users to query and build complex analytical rules across all data sources without any programming expertise, fostering agile self-service big data analysis.
  
  

Dynamic and Scalable Data Management

• Allowed users to add new datasets on the fly—even if they didn’t match the existing data model—linking them to current data using customizable templates, all without coding.
• Provided private investigation sandboxes to experiment with new data without impacting live systems.
  
  

Knowledge Graph for Relationship Discovery

• DataWalk’s knowledge graph technology created a unified view of all supplier-related data, enabling automatic inference of hidden relationships and connections.
• Analysts uncovered critical insights, such as supplier dependencies, potential vulnerabilities, and previously unseen threat patterns, through intuitive link charts and multi-hop visualizations.
  
  

Efficient Architecture

• Performed computations directly where the bank's data resides, minimizing data movement and reducing system complexity.
• Unified AI/ML, graph analytics, and search functions into a single computational component, ensuring efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and performance.
  
  

Seamless Expansion and Adaptability

• Provided the flexibility to integrate external services and add new data sources, such as geopolitical risk databases and phishing victimology datasets, with minimal effort.
• Supported evolving use cases, including financial crime analysis, cyber campaign analysis, protest analysis, and more, without requiring vendor support or system reconfiguration.
  
  

We needed a system that we can easily adapt to new use cases ourselves, without relying on the vendor, enabling self-service.

Leader of The Threat Intelligence Team

Results

1. Enhanced Analytical Capabilities: Improved threat intelligence and supplier risk assessments with advanced analytics, graph capabilities, and machine learning.
2. Agile Threat Management: Empowered the Threat Intelligence team to identify, analyze, and manage threats proactively and effectively.
3. Increased Operational Efficiency: Simplified processes with an intuitive no-code interface, streamlining threat analysis and enabling rapid adaptation to new risks.
4. Informed Decision-Making: Enabled data-driven decisions with configurable dashboards and visualizations tailored to the bank's needs.
5. Future-Ready Scalability: Provided a flexible platform adaptable to new use cases without dependency on vendor support.

Key Differentiators with DataWalk

• Knowledge Graph for Relationship Discovery: Enabled users to infer hidden connections and dependencies across data for deeper investigative insights.
• Real-Time, Intuitive Access: Cross-referencing and querying of all datasets for immediate insights without needing technical expertise.
• Unified Computational Efficiency: Integrated AI/ML, graph analytics, and search functions on a single computation component to minimize complexity and costs.
• Adaptability and Expansion: Supported seamless integration of new use cases and external services, ensuring the platform's ongoing relevance and scalability.
• Automation and Security: Included rule-based permissions, audit logs, and automated investigation workflows to maintain secure, efficient operations.

DataWalk significantly enhances the bank’s ability to accurately detect and efficiently investigate supplier integrity risks. By integrating advanced technologies such as knowledge graphs and delivering an efficient, scalable architecture, DataWalk empowered the bank to address evolving threats with agility and precision.

The partnership with DataWalk exemplifies a bold step forward in mitigating risks for the bank, setting a new standard for the industry.