"The industry is spending to safeguard data to prevent major breaches"

Aujas is a leader in cybersecurity transformation services and helps premier banks, insurance providers, financial institutions and telecommunication companies across the globe protect their networks and data from increasingly advanced, complex and persistent threats. Sameer Shelke, Cofounder and COO - Aujas throws more light on his company during a chat with VARINDIA – 

Aujas as a company is focused on information risk which is also called cyber risk.The services portfolio which it has is comprehensive as it looks at various elements. Aujas looks at things which are on the application side, the data side, network side and people side. Over the last ten years, Aujas has built a service portfolio which looks at cyber security or information security from an end to end perspective and work with enterprises to make sure it secures that data. 

“India as we all know is extremely forward looking from the standpoint of technology both in the government and the private sector. We are in many ways at par with the world in terms of what technology is used in India plus all the initiatives happening on the government side such as digital India, Aadhar and so on. So, it’s a major market from a technology perspective. So when that happens of course the risks are also higher which means that as we use more technology both on the corporate side as well as on individuals, the risks are high in terms of exposure. As a result we have more cyber risks and breaches happening, which is why the industry has focused spending on ensuring that data is safeguarded,” says Sameer Shelke, Cofounder and COO – Aujas.

Aujas calls itself as a technology neutral services company.  It looks at customers and see what solution is required both from a service perspective and a technology perspective. “We are technology neutral and that is why we don’t push our own products or position our own product unnecessarily. Our focus is on the customer and create solutions that integrates services. We work with products or technologies which are more relevant in that particular situation,” says Sameer. 

Aujas uses many methodologies from a technology perspective to come to a solution for IT risk. For instance, in the case of a bank, Aujas makes sure that it understands the risks which the bank faces from an information perspective. Banks have to protect their customers, the information about customers against issues of financial fraud, which is one element of protection. The second element of protection is to protect the business and its own information assets. Most importantly while doing both these things it has to first comply withSBI regulations, as there are very strict and clear regulations as to how banks should operate.

“So when you work with a bank, the first thing you need to do is risk assessment, which is identifying what the business elements in the company are, what risks they face for protecting customers as well as protecting themselves, what is it that we have to do to comply with the regulations either from the state or from the central government or from RBI. We also need to assess what they have done so far, but look out for any gaps in terms of the things they should do more because of new risks or new regulations.  So we do a risk assessment which is identifying what the situation is, what are the things they have done so far and what is necessary,” explains Sameer. 

He further adds, “So we have to do Security audit, the second thing we have to do is the compliance audit, and the third is after we integrate the entire ecosystem, we will have to do the IT certification or security IT certification. Again the IT/security IT certification comes in various forms as there are compliance standards with respect to the specific industry the customer is into. For example if you are in the payment card industry, then there are PCI standards. We help customers to comply with those standards and then we engage certification bodies to come to the final audit and certify.”

And so…
According to Sameer, there are three things which differentiate Aujas from its competition - the first is because it comes from the cyber security space and has worked in this area for a long time, Aujas has a service portfolio which is very comprehensive. “So we look at things right from compliance to application to software to IoT to digital to API; we just have a large bracket to make sure that our services are comprehensive,” reiterates Sameer.

The second factor is experience, as Aujas has worked with lot of customers, both big and small in India and outside and has dealt with compliances or technological challenges. Aujas works with almost every banks in India, telcos in India, start-up companies and large global companies.It has around 400-500 customers over the last ten years.

The third factor is expertise. “We have the right expertise both from a technical perspective as well as a home process perspective. So at a very high level what differentiates us is the comprehensive nature of our portfolio, our experience and our expertise,” sums up Sameer. 

Today 50% of Aujas’s revenue comes from India, while the other 50% comes from outside India.BFSI is the largest sector, while it also has clients in sectors like manufacturing and retail.