Technology adoption has continuously helped businesses outsmart the competition. In recent years, progressive business leaders have been turning to Intelligent Automation (IA) to accomplish more while keeping costs down. But the hype around automation is not without skepticism over security. Whether an intelligent assistant works supervised, unsupervised, or in a hybrid manner, its nature of mimicking human-computer interactions makes it vulnerable to cybersecurity risks.
If fears of cyberattacks are holding you back from automating your business processes, we’re here to reassure you. You can confidently seize this competitive advantage with a few precautions. Intelligent automation security risks can easily be averted by following these best practices.
In this blog post, we’ll cover the potential threats of intelligent automation and discuss strategies to mitigate them.
Security Risks of Intelligent Automation
Intelligent automation assistants interact with systems and applications just like humans. They change data, edit files, and move in and out of applications like CRM and ERP. And just like humans, intelligent automation assistants need privileges and credentials to perform these tasks. Below are some security risks you need to be aware of:
Sourcing-Related Security Risks
Automation projects require secure development, safe deployment, and strong governance. An automation initiative introduces additional layers such as web, API, and data into your systems. Hiring inexperienced automation vendors or assigning internal teams with inadequate expertise might lead to poorly designed solutions that overlook compliance or regulatory standards. Non-compliant or insecure frameworks expose your organization to cybersecurity and legal risks.
Misuse of Privileged Access and Data Breach Risks
Superuser accounts, such as your IT team’s credentials, provide the highest access to your company’s network. A US data breach survey indicated that 82% of breaches involved compromised privileged accounts. The risks of privileged access misuse from intelligent automation implementation parallel those of human users. Automation assistants require read/write privileges to perform tasks, potentially making them targets for cyber attackers to breach systems, steal data, or disrupt operations.
Vulnerabilities and Outage Risks
Cyber attackers may exploit vulnerabilities, such as weak data encryption within automation bots, gaining unauthorized access to sensitive information. Poor automation implementation could expose organizations to attacks like SQL injections and cross-site scripting (XSS). Additionally, malicious actors can induce system outages through distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks aimed at automation bots.
5 Intelligent Automation Security Best Practices
Within an organization, automation assistants present security risks similar to human employees. Effectively managing these risks involves treating bots just like regular staff and assigning them only necessary permissions. Here are five critical intelligent automation security best practices:
1. Choose a Vendor Who Prioritizes Automation Security
Hiring an inexperienced vendor with poor coding standards and weak encryption can introduce significant security flaws. Consider the vendor’s track record, development methodology, customer base, and support quality. An experienced vendor with proven expertise in secure intelligent automation deployments can help design a safe automation strategy for your organization.
2. Establish a Strong Governance Framework
Regularly validate automation scripts and audit logs to ensure automation assistants function correctly. Vendors and internal teams should collaborate to establish clear governance frameworks that define automation scope, prioritize automation opportunities, and evaluate regulatory compliance. Clearly outline team roles and responsibilities and update your company’s Information Security Management System (ISMS) and Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies to reflect automation-specific requirements.
3. Create Unique Credentials for Automation Assistants
For accurate auditing and troubleshooting, clearly differentiate between automation and human employee activities. Never use employee credentials for automation purposes. Create unique identities for every automation assistant, store passwords securely in centralized encrypted locations (e.g., password vaults), and rotate passwords regularly. Limit employee access to automation credentials, and implement robust authentication methods, such as two-factor or token authentication.
4. Follow the Principle of Least Privilege
The Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) is critical to minimize security risks. IT administrators should restrict automation assistants’ access to the minimal rights or permissions necessary to complete their specific tasks. For instance, an assistant tasked with sending automated emails needs only read-only database access, significantly reducing potential vulnerabilities.
5. Ensure Consistent and Accurate Logging
Consistently monitoring and accurately logging each transaction made by automation assistants is essential. Properly maintained logs facilitate quick diagnosis of issues if a bot malfunctions. Secure automation logs in encrypted systems, separate from primary operations data, for optimal security.
Intelligent Automation Security Checklist
Gartner recommends a 4-step action plan for managing automation security risks. Here’s a comprehensive checklist to follow:
- Enhance software development practices for secure automation deployments.
- Create unique bot credentials separate from human users.
- Use secure authentication methods (two-factor authentication).
- Secure credentials in encrypted password vaults and rotate regularly.
- Implement measures to identify, prevent, and control automation abuse.
- Avoid storing credentials in source code.
- Follow PoLP and assign minimum necessary permissions.
- Accurately log all automation transactions.
- Regularly review automation scripts and logs.
vBots: Secure Automation Implementation
Intelligent automation adoption is growing rapidly, but it carries inherent risks. Choosing the right vendor ensures your business benefits from secure, risk-managed automation. At vBots, we help businesses securely identify and implement automation opportunities for sustained growth.
