The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) has several rulebooks that outline the regulatory framework for financial institutions operating in Bahrain. These rulebooks serve as a comprehensive set of regulations and guidelines covering various aspects of banking, insurance, capital markets, and other financial activities. A part of it encompasses recommended procedures for safeguarding sensitive information, securing transactions, and identifying vulnerabilities in the cybersecurity policy of financial institutions.
The Control Guidelines in Appendix C of the Central Bank of Bahrain Rulebook provide a framework consisting of five core tasks for managing cybersecurity risk in financial institutions. These tasks should be performed concurrently and continuously to establish an operational culture that effectively addresses dynamic cybersecurity risks. The five core tasks are:
Identify: Develop a comprehensive understanding of cybersecurity risks to systems, people, assets, data, and capabilities across the entire bank. This involves understanding the business context, critical functions, and related risks to prioritize efforts and align with the bank’s risk management strategy.
Protect: Implement appropriate safeguards to ensure the delivery of critical services and mitigate the impact of potential cybersecurity incidents.
Detect: Establish and implement activities to promptly identify cybersecurity incidents.
Respond: Develop and implement appropriate actions to address detected cybersecurity incidents and contain their impact.
Recover: Develop and implement activities to maintain resilience plans and restore any impaired capabilities or services resulting from cybersecurity incidents.
OM-5.5.18 outlines the preventive measures that conventional bank licensees in Bahrain must implement to minimize their exposure to cybersecurity risks. It recommends the following measures regarding privileged access management (PAM):
Use of Privileged Access Management (PAM): Implementing PAM solutions to secure, control, manage, and monitor privileged access to critical assets. This involves implementing measures such as strong authentication, granular access controls, and monitoring of privileged account activities.
Limiting Exploitation and Monitoring: Utilizing identity and access management solutions to limit the exploitation of both privileged and non-privileged accounts. This includes monitoring the use of these accounts to detect any unauthorized or suspicious activities.
Overall, the focus is on implementing robust controls and monitoring mechanisms to manage and secure privileged access within the organization’s systems and networks. These measures help minimize the risk of unauthorized access, privilege abuse, and potential security breaches.
Besides giving you a peace of mind compliance wise, Privileged Access Manager can be a cost-efficient solution that covers such tasks as investigating incidents, securing remote and vendor access and allow you to prepare for audits effortlessly.
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