From being the first to offer cryptographic device clustering, HSM virtualization, dedicated key management hardware, to global cloud cryptography, Futurex has stayed at the forefront of the industry. Ruchin Kumar, Vice President – South Asia, Futurex highlights this in an exclusive interview with Abhineet Kumar of Elets News Network (ENN). Edited Excerpts:
Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Futurex and how it has evolved to become a leader in the technology space? Tell us about its cloud offerings and how Futurex is placed at the heart of this ongoing disruption.
Futurex has manufactured and developed enterprise-grade cryptographic solutions for over 40 years. While some technology companies struggle to keep up after major changes occur, Futurex has stayed at the forefront of the industry because our goal is to create change: to lead with new solutions rather than follow old ones.
We were the first to offer cryptographic device clustering, HSM virtualization, dedicated key management hardware, and global cloud cryptography. These are the advancements that our customers need and that we aim to create. To that end, Futurex has established data centers all over the world to provide our cloud customers with low latency, high availability, and maximum compliance.
You have worked very closely with central banks and regulators in the SAARC and ASEAN region in implementing security in payment systems, banking infrastructure and inter-banking settlements. How do you see the role of technology in addressing the challenges associated with the Indian Banking system?
From a regulatory standpoint, India takes compliance very seriously. Therefore, the cryptographic solutions we offer comply with all major local and international requirements. This allows banks and organisations in the payments sector to implement our solutions without worrying about compliance issues. It is not uncommon for large payment organisations to have legacy cryptographic infrastructure. When it comes time to deploy a new cryptographic solution, these organizations greatly benefit from a fast and seamless integration process. This is exactly what we provide by working side-by-side with these organizations during integration and by designing our technology to support a wide range of APIs and client libraries.
In short, for cryptographic technology to truly serve SAARC and ASEAN banking and payment systems, it can’t just fulfill the necessary use cases; it must offer effortless compliance and easy integration.
You have also been involved in government initiatives of e-governance, citizen centric services, setting up of national identity repositories and many others. What kind of collaboration do you see between Futurex and the Indian government to shape India’s growth trajectory?
We see great potential in cooperation with the central government to secure technological initiatives. There will always be a need for strong security measures for electronic governance and citizen identity, and Futurex has a tenured history of deploying such measures at scale. Identity is based on trust, and in the field of data security, trust is created through authentication.
More specifically, deploying strong encryption and effective encryption key management builds the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) needed to encrypt, protect, and manage digital identities. This can be achieved through Certificate Authority (CA), digital signing operations, and database protection, all of which are use cases commonly fulfilled by our cryptographic solutions on a large scale.
What are some of the key technological offerings that Futurex provides, and how do they differentiate themselves from other solutions in the market? What are the key areas that are driving demand for Futurex products and solutions?
As mentioned, our solutions and services fulfill a wide array of cryptographic use cases. What makes us truly different from other offerings on the market is, first – our vast integration options, second – our global data center presence, third – the centralised model by which they are deployed and managed, and fourth – our top-tier compliance.
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Additionally, Futurex solutions operate according to a shared code base that makes them highly interoperable and easy to update and configure.
What are some of the key trends that you see shaping the future of the technology industry, and how is Futurex positioning itself to take advantage of those trends?
Cloud adoption has been on the rise for some time. Now that more organisations have embraced the cloud, they are looking for ways to simplify management, streamline operations, and reduce costs. Anticipating this trend, we have developed our VirtuCrypt cloud cryptographic platform to be a one-stop shop for enterprise cryptography.
With VirtuCrypt, organizations can spin up virtually any cryptographic use case, scale it to any degree, and modify it on demand. In essence, an entire cryptographic infrastructure can be deployed and managed from a centralized platform. The power and control this provides to the user is almost unprecedented in the industry.