Cyber Defense eMagazine December 2019

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In some cases, the RPA bots work together with humans for functions such as moving or copying data
between applications.
Companies that rely on a large human workforce for process work, in which people perform high-volume,
transactional functions, stand to gain from using RPA, according to the Institute for Robotic Process
Automation and Artificial Intelligence (IRPA AI).
RPA software can deliver efficiencies to enterprise applications such as enterprise resource management
(ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management, and applications that
support functions in human resources and finance.
Clearly the emerging technology is having a huge impact on the way enterprises perform day-to-day
business processes.
According to Deloitte, 53 percent of organizations have started to leverage RPA to robotize and
automate repetitive tasks to allow the human workforce to focus on higher value work. Overall, RPA
adoption is expected to increase to 72 percent in the next two years and, if adoption continues at its
current level, RPA will achieve near-universal adoption within the next five years.
While RPA software is being deployed in all industries, the biggest adopters include banks, insurance
companies, telecommunications providers and utility companies.
These companies traditionally have lots of legacy systems, and implement RPA tools to enhance
integration among these systems and quickly accelerate their digital transformation efforts while
leveraging their IT investments.
This is creating new security risks that organizations need to be aware of.
Addressing the Security Risks
Considering the scale and speed at which bots work and the number of systems and applications they
can access, security should be a primary consideration when deploying the technology.
As with any other newer technology, RPA can easily become a new attack vector for bad actors if security
isn’t factored into the platforms.
RPA software interacts directly with critical business systems and applications, which can introduce
significant risks when bots automate and perform routine tasks. Bots don’t need administrative rights to
perform their tasks.
But they do need privileged access to log in to ERP, CRM and other enterprise business systems to
access data, copy or paste information, or move data through a process from one step to the next.
Privileged access without security is a recipe for disaster.
According to a recent study, 84 percent of organizations believe that IT infrastructure and critical data is
not secured unless privileged accounts are fully protected.