The snapshot
1
BGK, a Polish development bank, aimed to enhance its data backup policies due to the escalating geopolitical risks and cyberattack attempts in Eastern Europe.
2
The bank sought to implement a robust solution for secure data backup storage, focusing on compliance with regulatory requirements, scalability, and integration with existing IT systems.
3
A hybrid architecture was developed, leveraging Google Cloud services to create an additional data backup system in a European Union region, providing enhanced data security and resilience against ransomware attacks.
About the client
BGK responds to the challenges of the Polish economy by cooperating with the market, stabilising it and adapting its activities to global trends. As a Polish development bank, it is committed to increasing the country’s energy and defence security and undertakes initiatives aimed at increasing Poland’s cybersecurity. The bank creates solutions for the sustainable financing of energy transformation and maintains long-term financing of the defence sector.
The institution has been initiating and developing cooperation between business, the public sector and financial institutions for many years. It supports the development of Polish industry and its competitiveness by financing the largest infrastructure investments, increasing Poles’ access to financing in a responsible manner. Additionally, it supports the activities of Polish companies abroad. Particular attention is paid to the development of projects for industry, infrastructure, transport, logistics, education in the area of entrepreneurship and strategic security.
Challange
BGK is constantly improving the security of storing and processing data entrusted to it by customers, partners, and bank employees themselves. Growing risk resulting from the dynamically changing geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe, as well as the growing wave of attempted attacks on the country’s cybersecurity infrastructure, prompted BGK to look for effective adjustments to data backup storage policies. The project, which assumes the use of the Google Cloud computing service, allowed the bank to obtain a number of benefits in a short time and counteract the risks of popular ransomware attacks.
After a positive assessment of compliance with the regulator’s requirements, the bank re-analysed individual aspects related to the project. They took into account:
- Currently used technologies
- The availability of the environment
- The scale of integration with existing BGK IT systems
- The scalability of the cloud service
The result of the cooperation between the BGK and Devoteam was an additional policy of the bank’s data backup system. The expansion of the central data backup system to a hybrid architecture enabled additional storage of BGK data copies in the Google Cloud region located in the European Union.
Solution
Design
The planning of data storage in the cloud included an analysis of available data encryption methods (in transit, during transmission to and from the cloud) and the possibility of using data encryption methods in the future. The future methods would encrypt data already during processing.
In accordance with the regulator’s recommendations, expert assessed the technological and economic feasibility of the process. The architecture of the components launched in Google Cloud had to reflect the proven architecture of the bank’s central backup system. BGK’s requirements also included centralisation of audit logs and integration of the solution with SIEM, operated in the infrastructure of both processing centres.
Technology
The use of proven cloud technology services and the bank’s team’s competence in using backup technology and security systems previously used in BGK allowed the project to be completed within a few weeks. The solution designed jointly by the bank and Devoteam uses the following Google Cloud services: Cloud VPN, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, IAM, KMS, Audit logs, Pub/Sub and Organisation Policies.
Using GCP as a platform for collaboration with our IT environment was a natural step thanks to the unique interoperability capabilities between GCP and DellEMC devices.
Mariusz Głębocki
Director of the IT Department at BGK
Results
Enhanced data security was achieved through a dedicated, isolated backup repository in Google Cloud.
The bank significantly expanded its expertise and capabilities in cloud technologies.
Access to modern, scalable IT services from Google Cloud improved cost management and reduced technical debt.
The project of implementing a separate BGK backup repository resulted in several benefits:
- Enhanced Data Security: The bank has improved the security of its data by leveraging a dedicated, isolated repository.
- Expanded Cloud Capabilities: BGK has further developed its expertise in cloud technologies.
- Access to Modern IT Services: The bank now has access to cutting-edge, innovative IT services from Google Cloud, which can be utilised on demand to supplement or modernise existing solutions.
- Scalability and Flexibility: The ease of reconfiguring services and utilising scaling options is a key advantage. However, this also necessitates continuous knowledge development for the bank’s expert teams and a clear division of responsibilities for operational and development tasks.
- Improved Cost Management: BGK has gained skills in planning and monitoring the costs associated with using cloud services.
- Reduced Technical Debt: By embracing cloud technology and its modernisation cycle, the bank avoids technological debt, which ultimately benefits its clients and partners.
Cloud service providers are an integral part of the operational work of the IT department and business areas for BGK, from backups to SaaS solutions. The project we are implementing will allow us to use the potential of GCP and its products during the period of dynamic digital development that BGK is going through.
Sebastian Jaworski
Director of the IT systems development department at BGK