Today’s business environment is met with an imperative demand of workforce digitization as a means of increasing productivity while decreasing the number of superfluous functions. As such, it is very important for businesses to ensure sensitive data does not fall victim to any cyber attacks.

Robotic process automation (RPA) naturally replaces tedious tasks so employees can focus on more meaningful work. This could translate into potentially undesirable scenarios due to access to sensitive information and accounts.

Possible cyber security risks associated with RPA

RPA itself can be used for theft or destruction of sensitive information. This may take many forms, such as abusing privileged access, which can be maliciously used to compromise certain accounts and lead to sensitive information being accessed by third parties.

Risks may also be propagated in the form of mistakes from within the company, such as when remote access is given to people outside the company or when a new RPA process is installed and instructed successfully, but is not well encrypted.

How to secure a robotic process automation (RPA) ecosystem

When it comes to reducing potential cyber security risks of a company’s RPA ecosystem, security professionals should account for the technical and human side of automated processes.

In order to ensure no security breaches occur, organizations should plan for all stages of the ongoing operation: the selected architecture, how it will be implemented, ongoing functions and tasks, and operations that are to be performed by the software robots.

In order to achieve this, organizations should build strategies that include security requirements for reducing RPA cyber security risks, such as having a formal risk management program and increasing awareness of bot engineers and business creators.

Organizations should also periodically evaluate RPA conditions and examine data-flow analysis and security scanning as a means to reinforce security and ensure the software is kept virus free.

Additionally, managing user access privileges and duty segregation could maximize security by authorizing software robots only to perform tasks assigned to them (which were already scanned, with credentials that were already secured), instead of scheduling more tasks with an unverified level of security.

How robotic process automation (RPA) reduces cyber security risks

It can be difficult for CIOs and CISOs to sift through a plethora of technologies and apps that are not perfectly compatible. This results in employees having to manually gather data from multiple systems by copying it from one system to another and interchanging apps.

In order to counter this, organizations can utilize new forms of robotics in order to reduce time detection and respond to incidents, thus minimizing risk exposure for incoming attacks. These forms of robotics can also be used to automatically deploy security control when certain irregularities are discovered within routines checks and lead to better decision-making and more consistent outcomes.

How robotic process automation (RPA) reduces cyber security risks

It can be difficult for CIOs and CISOs to sift through a plethora of technologies and apps that are not perfectly compatible. This results in employees having to manually gather data from multiple systems by copying it from one system to another and interchanging apps.

In order to counter this, organizations can utilize new forms of robotics in order to reduce time detection and respond to incidents, thus minimizing risk exposure for incoming attacks. These forms of robotics can also be used to automatically deploy security control when certain irregularities are discovered within routines checks and lead to better decision-making and more consistent outcomes.

1. Bar phishing performed by hackers

Robotic process automation can offer efficient security defense from unwanted viruses or attacks, through AI-powered cognitive RPA bots that offer many advantages for error reduction and boosting employee productivity.

As such, AI bots don’t question their tasks and don’t see the difference between sensitive information and non-sensitive information. Furthermore, they can teach other bots the learning curve needed to perform a certain task and provide security without requiring downtime.

2. Secure sensitive information

AI bots powered by RPA are able to easily implement General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations without interrupting the information stream. They are also able to create back-up copies of essential processes in case of emergency shutdown. Moreover, they can access said information remotely. RPA is also capable of recording a limited amount of data actions within a log, allowing for a more complete audit trail.

3. Eliminate unauthorized accessibility

Considering that access security is required in order to safeguard business core elements from unintentional employee errors or hacker attacks, software robots can allow only certain people with certain credentials to access sensitive information within the system. They can also add a layer of encryption for a more secure data usage, which may prevent any malicious attacks from outside the company.

4. Reduce the number of potential cyber attacks

Although the concept of privacy has seen its fair share of change over the years, companies are taking security risks more seriously than ever before. RPA constitutes a viable way of reducing cyber attacks via data encryption that minimizes cyber risks. However, it should be implemented with caution. RPA should always be backed by constant monitoring, ensure sensitive information credentials are not discovered by unauthorized personnel, and use encryption to keep malicious attacks at bay.

Conclusion

Robotic process automation is becoming increasingly popular in the cyber security domain. Organizations are using RPA to minimize risk exposure by reducing the time to detect and respond to incidents, lower employee turnover by automating repetitive tasks and allowing them to focus on higher value work, and instantly deploying security controls when issues are discovered.