Cyber Resilience Framework For NBFCs: Key Takeaways From Recent Attacks

Introduction

Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) have recently been drowning in attacks — ransomware, supply chain breaches, phishing attacks so real you’d actually want to double-check. And believe me, if there is one sector that has money in the bank when it comes to security, it’s financial services.

I’ve been in cybersecurity for decades — network admin since ‘93, when dial-up tones were still a thing. I saw worms like Slammer fly across networks in milliseconds, participated in post-breach investigations that kept me awake for nights, and, more recently, helped tighten the zero-trust architectures of three banks.

If you are running security for a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), you require something in addition to firewalls and antivirus. You need cyber resilience. This is not merely about stopping an attack; it’s about how to survive and continue operations when (not if) something gets past your defenses.

Let’s break it down.

Key Threats Facing NBFCs

NBFCs are high-value targets as they were bang at the sweet spot — sensitive financial data is handled but not necessarily the security maturity of full-fledged banks. From what I’ve witnessed in recent days, these are the top threats:

• Ransomware: Attackers no longer just lock your files; they steal them first and threaten to publish customer data if you don’t pay.
• Phishing & Business Email Compromise (BEC): Senior management are not immune. I’ve seen fake emails written so convincingly that they would fool anyone.
• Third-party risks: You may trust your vendors, but do they trust their vendors? Supply chain breaches are among the sneakier threats out there.
• API attacks: Financial systems rely on APIs to move data around, but weak APIs are like an open back door to your infrastructure.
• Insider threats: Not all breaches come from the outside. Disgruntled employees or good old human stupidity can go a long way in doing damage.

It’s a brutal landscape. But here’s the thing — we have to play offense, too. We need resilience.

Why Cyber Resilience Has Never Been More Important

It’s not a matter of if you’ll be breached. It’s when. That’s: not pessimism — realism.

Traditional cybersecurity is prevention-focused: preventing an attack before it occurs. Cyber resilience? That’s roughly how fast you can identify, contain, and recover from an attack without paralyzing your business.

Think of it this way—airbags and seatbelts (resilience) are no substitute for good brakes (security). Because, when you’re at 100kmph, prevention is only part of the game.

A resilient NBFC can:

• Identify anomalies before they turn into disasters.
• If it is from a system, isolate those systems and prevent it from lateral movement.
• Maintain vital operations even during attacks.
• Improve recovery time minimizing downtime and loss.

Without resilience, you only have to get hit by one ransomware attack; that can take you down—permanently.

Enabling Productivity: How to Begin? Framework Overview

1. Find Your High Priority Assets and Threats

You have to know what you’re protecting before locking anything down.

• Identify mission-critical systems—customer databases, financial transactions, APIs, backups.
• Prioritize risks by business impact — a breach in customer records is not the same as one hitting your internal HR system.
• Assess third-party exposure — your security posture has to include vendors and cloud services.

2. Implement Zero-Trust Security

I cannot stress this enough — trust nothing, verify everything.

• No global network access — segment your network such that one compromised machine does not collapse the business.
• Everything has Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
• Ratio-based Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) — Employees need access to only what is absolutely required.
• Continuous authorization — rather than logging in once, we need to be continuously verifying anyone with access.

3. Incorporate a Comprehensive Incident Response Plan

Because when things go haywire, the last thing you want is people scrambling.

• Establish distinct roles and responsibilities — who’s responsible for what when an incident occurs?
• Exercise your incident response plan — tabletop exercises, red team exercises. Don’t risk your plan on the real thing until you see if it works.
• Backup strategies must be bulletproof—the need for offline backups is non-negotiable.

4. AI? Maybe. Focus on Real Visibility First.

Everybody is doing “AI-driven security” now. But let’s get real—if you’re not even doing the basics of good security hygiene, you’re not going to get saved by some AI.

• Put in basic logs and monitoring info before you implement complex AI-driven threat detection.
• Don’t make your SIEM (Security Information & Event Management) the dumpster—make sure it is useful and not just log data dumped into it.
• Use behavioral analytics—understand what normal looks like in your network so you can identify the strange stuff.

That being said, AI-enhanced threat intelligence can be a huge asset—but only if you have the right system tuned correctly, and a staff that understands how to make sense of the alerts.

Continuous Monitoring — The Backbone for Cyber Resilience

A solid security framework is nice—but if you aren’t actively monitoring and refining it, then you just have a set of nice documents sitting in a folder collecting dust.

What do we need to up for constant vigilance?

• Network activity — odd data transfers, login attempts, privilege escalation.
• User behavior — is an employee now hitting 100x their typical data quota? It could be a hacked account.
• Endpoint security health — missing patches, outdated antivirus, unauthorized software.
• Threat intelligence feeds — Get ahead of emerging attack techniques.

How often should you conduct a test of your defenses?

• Run penetration tests regularly, not annually. Quarterly at the very least.
• Challenge your incident response by running automated red team simulations.
• Conduct live exercises with real personnel to test systems in real-world environments.

If you’re not continuously calibrating your security program, it’s already stale.

Quick Take: (For TL;DR Crowd)

• NBFCs are among top industries that become victims of ransomware, phishing-type, supply chain, and many other attacks.
• Cyber resilience is about surviving attacks, not preventing them.
• Key steps to resilience:
  • Zero-Trust Architecture (don’t trust anyone implicitly, enforce strict access control).
  • Strong Incident Response Plan (test it frequently).
  • Continuous Monitoring (threats do not become obsolete after October 2023).
  • Third-Party Risk Management (because your vendors can hack you too).
• Security is not a one-time thing. You need to continuously test, tune, and enhance your defenses.

Final Thoughts

I’ve been around long enough to know that security isn’t a shiny new toy (or toys) — it’s a resilient, long-term build.

I recently returned from DefCon and still buzzing from the hardware hacking village, and let me tell you, attackers are moving quickly to innovate. For NBFCs who do not take cyber resilience seriously, it is not a question of whether they will suffer a breach but rather, when.

So take a hard look at your security posture — not just from a technology perspective, but a business continuity perspective. And can you survive a ransomware attack? A data breach? A third-party compromise?

If the answer isn’t a strong yes, then now is the time to act.