Strategic Solution for MAS TRM Compliance
As the digital economy evolves, organizations in Singapore face increasing regulatory scrutiny to protect their IT infrastructure, especially within the financial sector. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) established the Technology Risk Management (TRM) guidelines to ensure financial institutions implement effective risk management practices in their IT environments. These guidelines emphasize the importance of securing data, monitoring access, and managing IT infrastructure.
An Identity, Device and Access Management (IAM) solution is a set of tools designed to securely manage digital identities and control access to an organization’s resources. It ensures that only authorized individuals can access specific systems or data through features like user authentication, role-based access control, and multi-factor authentication (MFA). Additionally, IAM solutions track and monitor user activities, enhancing security and ensuring compliance. These capabilities are vital for meeting MAS compliance requirements.
As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile and distributed, so do their devices, making it essential to ensure their security. Our Cloud-based IAM Package’s offering is uniquely positioned to help today’s businesses attain and maintain MAS compliance. This article explores how the features align with MAS TRM and enable organizations to secure their IT environments effectively.
IAM Features and MAS TRM Compliance
1. Device Management and Control
IAM allows IT teams to enforce device compliance by managing endpoints across different platforms (macOS, Windows, Linux etc). MAS TRM requires institutions to implement controls that secure IT systems and data from unauthorized access or tampering.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Asset Management: Inventory Management provides IT teams with real-time visibility into all devices across an organization, including details on hardware, software, and system configurations. Admin can also easily find out what software users have access to under Software Statistics.
- Remote Management: Administrators can remotely enforce security policies and manage configurations. Admin can also perform device baseline scanning regularly to flag out non-compliant software or processes. This aligns with MAS TRM’s focus on ensuring access control and securing distributed IT assets.
2. Data Security and Encryption
MAS TRM stresses the importance of encrypting data at rest and in transit to protect sensitive information. This is critical for mobile devices accessing corporate networks and sensitive customer data.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Disk Encryption Policies: Enforces full-disk encryption (such as FileVault for macOS or BitLocker for Windows) on devices, ensuring that sensitive data stored locally is encrypted.
- Sensitive Information: Work with DLP (item 5) to track attempts at transmission of sensitive information
3. Access Control
MAS mandate the principles of segregation of duties and ‘least privilege’ when granting staff access to information assets.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Unified Identity Management: With our IAM, IT administrators can centrally manage user identities and access to corporate applications and cloud applications. This aligns with MAS TRM’s requirements for a centralized identity and access management system, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive data. Administrators can automate the provisioning of access to necessary IT resources during onboarding according to the employee’s role.
- Off-Boarding: Most importantly, for off-boarding process, where security is paramount, our IAM enables administrators to revoke access to these resources when an employee leaves. Off-boarding can be scheduled in advance as well. This ensures that access is revoked timely and there is no residual access to sensitive data or systems, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches.
- Domainless: As our IAM is domainless, IT administrators can also centrally manage vendors and contractors’ access to the company’s IT resources by applying the same security policies, access controls, and rules as they do for employees
4. App Management and Security
MAS TRM stresses the importance of securing applications, especially those accessing sensitive data. IAM allows organizations to manage and control the apps installed on devices.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Application Whitelisting: IT administrators can enforce application policies, ensuring only approved apps are installed on corporate devices. Any non-compliant can be flag out during routine device baseline scan. This prevents the use of unauthorized or potentially insecure apps that could expose the organization to risk.
- Remote App Deployment:Allows businesses to remotely deploy security-critical applications, updates, and patches to ensure devices stay compliant with MAS TRM’s risk management requirements.
5. Data Loss Prevention
MAS TRM requires financial institutions to implement strong data protection measures, including data classification, encryption, access controls, and data loss prevention (DLP) tools, to prevent unauthorized access and leaks of sensitive information
- How our IAM Helps:
- Data Loss Prevention: IT administrators can create policy to identify sensitive data and allow with alerts or block the transmission of sensitive data entirely. Administrators can easily view such activities or trace data leak from admin console via file upload or watermark.
6. Anti-Virus
MAS TRM requires financial institutions to deploy antivirus solutions on all critical systems to detect, prevent, and remove malware and other malicious software. Institutions must ensure that antivirus software is regularly updated, configured for real-time scanning, and integrated into an overall security strategy to minimize the risk of cyber threats.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Anti-Virus integrated: Anti-virus is integrated into the IAM, automatically pushed to devices, stays updated and running. IT administrators can view the viruses detected within the same admin console and if VPN is implemented, disconnect the device’s access to internal Company’s resources upon virus detection to prevent the spread of the malware.
7. Patch Management
Effective patch management is a critical component of cybersecurity, ensuring that devices are protected from known vulnerabilities. MAS TRM guidelines require timely security patches to prevent exploitation of weaknesses in the software that could compromise sensitive data.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Patch Deployment:Enables IT administrators to automate the distribution of OS security patches across all managed endpoints according to risk level. This ensures that devices remain up-to-date with the latest security standards, reducing the risk of unpatched vulnerabilities being exploited.
- Centralized Patch Monitoring: IT teams can monitor patch status from a single dashboard, ensuring compliance across all devices. This visibility ensures that financial institutions stay compliant with MAS TRM’s requirement for continuous system integrity and protection.
8. Audit Logs and Monitoring
MAS TRM guidelines mandate financial institutions to maintain comprehensive audit logs to detect, monitor, and report any suspicious activity. Monitoring device usage and access patterns is essential for ensuring compliance.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Device Monitoring and Reporting:Offers real-time monitoring and logging of device activities, including login attempts and admin activities. These logs are essential for demonstrating compliance during MAS audits.
- Incident Response: With IAM’s reporting and logging capabilities, IT teams can quickly detect, investigate, and respond to security incidents, ensuring quick resolution and reducing the risk of regulatory breaches.
9. Remote Wipe and Lost Device Management
Losing a device poses significant risks to data security, especially in financial institutions. MAS TRM emphasizes having controls in place to safeguard against data leaks from lost or stolen devices.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Remote Device Wipe: If a device is lost or stolen, administrators can remotely wipe all corporate data from the device, ensuring sensitive customer or business information is not compromised.
10. Business Continuity
MAS TRM guidelines require businesses to have contingency measures in place to maintain operational resilience during disruptions.
- How our IAM Helps:
- Cloud-Based Management: The IAM’s cloud-native platform ensures that device management is not dependent on on-premise infrastructure, which can be affected by outages. IT teams can maintain continuity by managing devices and enforcing security protocols remotely from anywhere, which ensures resilience in line with MAS TRM requirements.
11. Cybersecurity Assessment
The MAS TRM guidelines require financial institutions to conduct regular cybersecurity assessments, such as Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT). These assessments help identify and address security weaknesses in systems, ensuring that institutions remain resilient against cyber threats and comply with regulatory standards.
- How Perennial Helps:
- VAPT: Perennial Consultancy provides comprehensive budget friendly web penetration test packages with transparent pricing. We provide discount for repeat penetration test, saving costs for companies who need to perform annual pentesting. For a limited time, we offer free VAPT to customers who take up our IAM package. Read more about our penetration test service here. Contact us for more details.
Conclusion: Perennial as a Strategic Partner for MAS TRM Compliance
As financial institutions in Singapore navigate the complex landscape of regulatory compliance, MDM becomes indispensable for ensuring secure and compliant mobile environments. Our IAM offers a robust suite of IAM features that not only enhance device security and productivity but also align with key MAS TRM guidelines, from identity management and encryption to monitoring and incident response.
By leveraging our Cloud-based IAM platform, financial institutions can confidently manage their device ecosystem while meeting the stringent requirements of MAS TRM, all while empowering their workforce to stay productive and secure in an increasingly remote and distributed work environment.
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Checkout more about our budget-friendly IAM packages here. Register for a free trial or a demo or let us know any questions you might have.
