BB issues guidelines on cloud computing

For the first time, the Bangladesh Bank on Thursday issued a guideline on cloud computing to mitigate cyber risk aiming to maintain the overall sustainability in the financial sector.

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources such as networks, servers, storage, applications, and services that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Cloud computing has become popular as it enables banks and other financial institutions to respond rapidly to customer demands for products and experiences.

The guideline applies to banks, NBFI, MFSPs, PSPs, PSOs and other financial service providers.

The financial organisations will have to implement necessary measures in a bid to secure the cloud and on-premises environments to mitigate contagion risks, according to the Bangladesh bank guideline.

Network access and security controls such as firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), advanced threat protection and web proxy be implemented to secure the on-premise environment from the cloud.

The financial organisations will have to regularly review firewall rules and access lists, especially after a network or architectural changes, as per the guideline, it reads. The policy will be implemented by December 31 of this year in case of continuation of all currently running cloud services.