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TECHNOLOGY

Tonik builds on Google Cloud to accelerate financial inclusion, open banking innovation in PH

January 12, 2022 1:11 p.m.

SINGAPORE – Tonik Digital Bank (“Tonik”), the Philippines’ first digital-only neobank, is tapping Google Cloud’s advanced platform to accelerate financial inclusion for all Filipinos.

Leveraging Google Cloud’s expertise in scalable infrastructure, application programming interface (API) management, machine learning (ML) and data analytics, the bank has taken just 10 months to become an established leader in open banking innovation and delivering next-generation financial services.

  Tonik, which is part of Singapore-headquartered fintech firm Tonik Financial Pte. Ltd., was launched in March 2021 after obtaining an initial rural bank license from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). Its digital platform provides core services like deposits with interest rates of up to six percent per annum.

There are also unique features for customers to create separate pockets of savings to meet specific goals over time called “Stashes,” such as affording a vacation, a college education, or accumulating an emergency fund.

“Fewer overheads from being branchless allows us to offer industry-leading interest rates that enhance Filipinos’ financial wellness, but our value proposition cannot be solely driven by lower costs. We have had to first earn the trust of consumers by investing heavily in a superior customer experience,” said Greg Krasnov, Founder and CEO, Tonik. “Google Cloud has enabled us to deliver frictionless and customer-centric services that allow Filipinos to easily embrace the financial system. This collaboration – having played an integral role in Tonik being entrusted with more than US$100 million in consumer deposits to date – will empower us to continue expanding our product portfolio and drive real societal impact across the region.”

Secure APIs Open Up New Possibilities for Consumers and Developers

  With the BSP requiring banks to conduct due diligence by verifying each customer’s identity to prevent fraud and money laundering, applying for an account traditionally involves individuals having to first visit a physical branch to present valid government-issued identification (ID) to an officer.

This makes it difficult for millions of Filipinos to open accounts or make deposits. Unlike urban cities that have bank branches or ATMs at every corner, the people in rural Philippines – who account for 52.6 percent of the total population[1] – must travel long distances and arrive before the branch closes.

  By using Google Cloud’s Apigee API Management platform to build and scale open banking APIs, Tonik could quickly integrate its mobile application with capabilities from third-party providers to make account opening and cash deposits fast, seamless and convenient.

To help Filipinos set up accounts in under five minutes – instead of hours or days, Tonik interoperates with Daon, its partner for automated customer onboarding and biometric authentication.

The process starts with Tonik asking the customer for a selfie and a scanned copy of their ID. Tonik extracts text from these images through Google Cloud’s optical character recognition (OCR) APIs and shares the information with Daon through another trusted API.

Daon then cross-checks the customer’s identity against official sources that issued the ID. This complex data flow is invisible to the user, who only needs to download the Tonik mobile application, verify their identity for account opening, and start banking.

Using APIs, Tonik also exchanges data securely with authorized ecosystem partners like 7-Eleven convenience stores and pawn shops to capture transactions in real-time. When a user makes a deposit at a 7-Eleven, which are readily available across the Philippines, they would see the completed transaction on their Tonik application and start earning interest immediately.

 “Interoperability is core to our business strategy and everything on our digital banking application is therefore API-driven,” said Arivuvel Ramu, Chief Technology Officer, Tonik. “As our architectural foundation, Google Cloud’s industry-leading Apigee API Management platform allows us to unlock new digital channels, expand our business model, and generate new revenue streams. While APIs are not new to conventional banks, they tend to be private APIs tailored for a specific partner, which means third parties cannot reuse that API. In line with our commitment toward supporting broader ecosystem innovation, we have taken the private APIs that we have developed and converted them into public APIs.”

 Third-party developers who want to create new features or services for Tonik’s ecosystem of partners and users can now reuse its public APIs to do so expeditiously. Apigee also provides a sandbox environment for developers to test and refine what they have created. Issues that would cause downtime can then be identified and rectified before the feature or service is authorized and rolled out to its intended users.

  “Customers trust us with sensitive information like demographic and transaction data. As a custodian of data and a facilitator of open banking innovation, it is imperative that we uphold the highest standards of consent management and API security. By capturing and managing customer consent on what data we are permitted to share with authorized third parties, Apigee ensures that we comply with stringent regulatory requirements like PSD2. Apigee simultaneously secures our APIs to avoid data breaches by malicious users,” said Ramu.

  Pooling Insights to Deliver Financial Wellness and Hyper Personalized Customer Experiences

  Tonik currently serves more than 190,000 customers. To further advance financial inclusion and achieve its target of growing its active customer base to a million users by December 2022, the bank has built an intelligent data lake using Cloud Storage on Google Cloud and BigQuery to provide hyper personalized customer experiences and help many Filipinos access loans for the first time.  With data generated from every event along the customer journey and residing across systems, connecting datasets and analyzing them manually is an uphill task. A cloud-based contact center software, for example, captures customer interactions and feedback across channels, while a core banking system captures deposits and withdrawals.

  By unifying data across systems and applying machine learning, Tonik can, for instance, implement quick and accurate alternative credit scoring methods. This enables it to serve individuals who have not formally engaged with financial institutions in the past, have no credit histories, and do not qualify for traditional bank loans as a result. Tonik has recently pioneered a consumer lending product called “Quick Loan” without the need for credit histories or collateral, followed by approvals within 30 minutes and real-time disbursement.

  “To drive financial inclusion and transcend physical distance, pivoting to digital-first business models and customer interactions are now a necessity,” said Ruma Balasubramanian, Managing Director, Southeast Asia, Google Cloud. “Tonik, through its mature API- and data-led strategy, is creating an open finance ecosystem that will accrue richer digital user experiences and flexibility for players to securely share and maximize digital assets – with Filipinos the ultimate beneficiaries. Google Cloud is proud to be a part of Tonik’s innovation journey. We look forward to supporting the bank’s continuous commitment toward serving the Philippines’ unbanked and underbanked, while it scales for growth and empowers the region’s fintech developer community.”

TECHNOLOGY

LG’s Inverter Direct Drive motor reaches milestone with 100M units produced

March 14, 2023 11:32 a.m.

A Key Component of Premium LG Washing Machines for More than Two Decades, Company’s Innovative Motor Technology Continues to Evolve for Excellence

LG Electronics (LG) announces that production of its Inverter Direct Drive™ (DD™) motor has exceeded 100 million units. The company’s differentiated motor technology is a major factor in the strong, reliable performance and continuing global popularity of LG’s industry-leading laundry solutions.

From 1998 to the end of 2022, the company produced, on average, over 12,000 Inverter DD motors per day. LG’s Inverter DD motor connects directly to the washing drum, an innovation that helps make LG washing machines more durable and dramatically reduces noise and energy consumption during operation.

LG has refined the Inverter DD motor over four generations, continuously improving the technology and its performance capabilities to deliver greater customer value. The company holds over 240 Inverter DD motor related technology patents in Korea and internationally. In 2019, the company applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the Inverter DD motor to further enhance its efficiency and effectiveness. Used in LG’s premium washing machines and dryers, the AI DD motor leverages deep learning technology to detect the weight of each load and the types of fabrics being washed. It then selects the optimal combination of drum movements from the company’s proprietary 6 Motion tech – which enables six discrete drum movements – to care and clean for users’ laundry.

Last year, LG brought its advanced Inverter DD motor to its dryers for the first time. Like the company’s washers, LG dryers also offer 6 Motion (Tumble, Swing, Rolling, Stepping, Scrubbing, and Filtration) technology to boost drying performance and minimize fabric damage. LG’s inverter motor technology – specifically, the AI DD – became the first home appliance technology to earn Deep Learning AI Verification from global safety science company, (UL) Underwriters Laboratories.

“The number of Inverter DD motors produced points to the excellence of the motor technology LG has developed for its premium laundry solutions,” said Kim Yang-sun, head of the Component Solution Business Unit at LG Electronics Home Appliance & Air Solution Company. “We will continue to create highly efficient core components that boost the performance and reliability of our products while also reducing carbon emissions during operation.”

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TECHNOLOGY

Kaspersky study reveals basic cybersecurity terms unfamiliar to C-level executives in SEA

February 20, 2023 3:05 p.m.

Every fourth business executive in Southeast Asia (SEA) prefers not to flag lack of understanding when discussing cybersecurity issues. A recent Kaspersky study also reveals one in ten C-level managers have never heard of threats such as Botnet, APT and Zero-Day exploit.

The same proportion appeared to be unfamiliar with cyber security concepts like DecSecOps, ZeroTrust, SOC and Pentesting.

According to a PwC’s study, while backing cybersecurity in every business decision has already become the norm in every other company, more than half of executives lack confidence that their cyber spending is being allocated to the most significant risks their organization is facing. Kaspersky conducted their own research to help IT and C-level find common ground and explore the root of their misunderstandings, where a total of 300 executives from the SEA region were surveyed.

The Kaspersky poll indicates that C-suite sometimes struggle to understand their IT security peers and are not always ready to show their confusion. Thus, 26% of non-IT executives here say they would not feel comfortable flagging that they don’t understand something during a meeting with IT and IT security. 

Although most of them hide their confusion because they prefer to clarify everything after the meeting or choose to figure everything out by themselves, more than half (55%) don’t ask additional questions because they don’t believe the IT peers will be able to explain it in a clear way. Almost two-in-five also feel embarrassed revealing they don’t understand the topic and 42% don’t want to look ignorant in front of their IT colleagues.

Also, even though all surveyed top-managers from SEA regularly discuss security related issues with IT security managers more than one-in-ten respondents have never heard of threats such as Zero-Day exploit (11%), Botnet (9%), and APT (9%). At the same time Spyware, Malware, Trojan and Phishing appeared to be more familiar for top-managers.

More than one-in-ten top managers here admit they have never heard of cybersecurity terms like DecSecOps (10%), SOC (10%), Pentesting (10%), and ZeroTrust (6%). 

“Non-IT top management do not have to be experts in complex cybersecurity terminology and concepts and IT security executives should keep this in mind when communicating with the board,” comments Sergey Zhuykov, Solution Architect at Kaspersky. 

“To establish efficient cooperation CISO should be able to focus C-level attention precisely on meaningful details and clearly explain what exactly the company is doing to minimize cybersecurity risks. In addition to communicating clear metrics to stakeholders, this approach requires offering solutions instead of problems,” says Zhuykov.

“On the other end of the communications spectrum, only 6% of IT security professionals in SEA admit facing difficulty in discussing aspects of their work to the C-level. This means the majority of our technical workforce deem that their updates are understood by the decision makers. To bridge this dangerous gap, security teams should also incorporate effective tools – real life examples and use of reports and numbers – to ensure that discussions are done effectively,” adds Chris Connell, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky. 

To ease the communication between IT security and business functions within the company, Kaspersky recommends the following: 

  • IT security should be positioned as a driver for growth and innovation in the organization. To achieve this the IT security team should move away from prohibitive tactics and rather explain how the business can achieve its goals while mitigating cybersecurity risks.
  • CISO should actively engage in operational activities and build relationships with the company’s stakeholders. While fewer than 20% of CISOs have established partnerships with key executives in sales, finance, and marketing, it is hard for them to stay abreast of the needs of the business. 
  • When communicating with the board, use arguments based on an overview of threats by experts, your company’s attack status and best practices
  • Explain to the board what the main responsibilities of the IT security team are. If possible, provide them with an opportunity to walk in a CISO’s shoes to get insights on the most relevant IT security challenges. 
  • Allocate cybersecurity investments in tools with proven efficacy and ROI. This means tools that lower the level of false positives, and reduce times of attack detection, the time spent per case and other metrics are important to any IT security team.

Kaspersky in Southeast Asia also has launched a Buy 1 Free 1 promo to help SMBs and midrange enterprises in beefing their cybersecurity capabilities. Businesses can now enjoy two years of enterprise-grade endpoint protection for the price of 1 with Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business or Cloud or Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Optimum, with 24×7 phone support. Interested customers can reach out to sea.sales@kaspersky.com.  

The full report and more insights on communications issues between C-level and IT security managers are available via the link.

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TECHNOLOGY

Kaspersky Threat Intelligence enhances its threat data feeds, threat analysis, brand protection capabilities

February 4, 2023 9:41 a.m.

The latest release of Kaspersky Threat Intelligence service includes a range of improved feeds that contribute to a deeper understanding of cyberattackers’ behavior, tactics, techniques and procedures regardless of region or language.

It also contains new integrated elements allowing for the protection of companies’ brands on social networks and in marketplaces.

Cybercriminals can remain undetected in companies’ networks, obtaining sensitive information resulting in financial loss, reputational damage, and long-lasting system failures. According to statistics provided by Kaspersky Global Emergency Response Team, the average duration of a prolonged attack is 94.5 days before it is detected by an InfoSec specialist.

To protect businesses from hidden threats like these, companies should provide their security teams with reliable solutions that help them stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and eliminate cyber risks before they can do any harm.

To implement this goal, Kaspersky updated its Threat Intelligence with new Threat Hunting and Incident Investigation capabilities. Providing information in human- and machine-readable formats, the solution supports security teams with meaningful context throughout the incident management cycle, boosts incident investigations and informs strategic decision-making.

Advanced Threat Data Feeds for better protection

The latest release of Kaspersky Threat Intelligence contains new feeds on crimeware, cloud services and threats to open-source software. These feeds will help customers to detect or prevent confidential data leakage and mitigate risks of supply chain attacks and vulnerable or politically compromised software components.

It also introduces Industrial Vulnerability data feed in OVAL format. It allows customers to find vulnerable ICS software easily on Windows hosts in their networks by using popular vulnerability scanners.

The existing feeds are enriched with additional valuable and actionable information such as new threat categories, attack tactics and techniques in MITRE ATT&CK classification, which will help customers identify their adversary, investigate and respond to the threats faster and more efficiently.

Integration with Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions via Kaspersky CyberTrace is also enhanced with the automated parsing of indicators of compromise (IoCs) directly from emails and PDFs.

Moreover, CyberTrace now supports flexible export format of IoCs, allowing seamless integration of filtered Threat Data Feeds into third-party security controls.

Better visibility for in-depth investigation

Kaspersky Threat Intelligence extended its coverage to IP addresses and added new categories such as DDoS, Intrusion, Brute-force and Net scanners, as customers previously made many searches related to these types of threats.

The updated solution also supports filters that can help users specify criteria sources, sections and periods for automated schedule searches.

The Research Graph, a graphic visualization tool, was also updated to support two new nodes: actors and reports.

Users can apply them to find additional connections with IoCs. This option accelerates threat response and threat hunting activities by highlighting IoCs from high profile attacks described in APT, crimeware and industrial reports as well as in Actor profiles.

Reliable brand protection on social networks and marketplaces

Reliable brand protection on social networks and marketplaces

The brand protection capability of Threat Intelligence was improved by adding new notifications to the Digital Footprint Intelligence service. Now it supports real time alerts for Targeted Phishing, faked Social Networks accounts or applications in Mobile Marketplace.

It helps to track the appearance of the phishing website targeting their brand company name, online services or trademarks and provide relevant, accurate and detailed information about phishing activities. The updated solution also monitors and detects malicious mobile applications impersonating the customer’s brand and fake organization profiles on social networks.

Improved threat analysis tools

The updated Kaspersky Cloud Research Sandbox now supports Android OS and MITRE ATT&CK mapping, related metrics will be displayed on a dashboard of the Cloud Sandbox. It also provides all network activities across all protocols, including IP, UDP, TCP, DNS, HTTP(S), SSL, FTP, POP3, IRC. The user can now specify command lines and file parameters to launch the emulation in a tailored way.

“We have been focusing on threat research at Kaspersky for over two decades. With petabytes of rich threat data, advanced machine learning technologies and a unique pool of global experts we work to support customers with the latest threat intelligence from all over the world, helping them to defend themselves even from previously unseen cyberattacks,” comments Anatoly Simonenko, Head of Technology Solutions Product Management at Kaspersky.

Learn more about Kaspersky Threat Intelligence.

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