Month: November 2024

Dr. Jasmin B Gupta, a renowned fintech expert and enterprising leader, has recently joined World Future Awards as its newest board member.

With over two decades of experience in digital and consumer banking, Dr. Gupta has been at the forefront of driving innovation and financial inclusion in India and beyond. She has held leadership roles at Equitas Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and HDFC Bank and played a pivotal role in launching two of India’s leading digital banks, NiyoX and FreoSave.

Dr. Gupta’s appointment brings a wealth of knowledge and forward-thinking insights to World Future Awards. In this exclusive interview, we explore her journey, accomplishments, and her vision for the future of fintech and digital transformation.

World Future Awards: With two decades of experience in fintech and banking, what inspired you to focus on co-founding Lxme & MeitMoney and how do you see its impact evolving in the future?

Dr Jasmin B Gupta: The first two decades of the career are focused on learning and leadership, the next two are focused on giving back and impact. And that’s what inspired me to launch innovative platforms around financial education and inclusion. As per World Bank’s Global Findex data, while the financial inclusion index has improved, there is still a lot that needs to be done to achieve inclusion in true letter and spirit by improving not just access but also financial literacy, quality and usage. Fintechs by focusing on niche segments such as women, youth, MSMEs, gig-workers, etc. are better placed to drive deeper wholistic digital financial inclusion across savings, payments, investments, insurance & credit.

WFA: You’ve led the launch of two of India’s leading digital banks, NiyoX and FreoSave. What were the most significant challenges you faced during these projects, and how did you overcome them?

JG: While world over we see licensed Digital Banks such as Revolut or Monzo, India still believes in Partnership based Digital Banks. Hence NiyoX and FreoSave had its fair share of collaboration challenges where agile innovative fintechs learn to work with highly regulated process-driven Banks. It’s about bringing the best of both worlds together, where the ultimate winner is the customer. It’s also an opportunity for both sides – banks and fintechs to understand and appreciate what each side brings to the table. So, while I have seen banks learning/unlearning Customer Experience and Innovation, I have seen fintechs learning Fraud Control and Risk Management. It is a win-win.

WFA: As someone who has won numerous awards, such as the Fintech Leader of the Year and Global Fintech Excellence in Leadership Award, how have these recognitions shaped your approach to leadership and innovation in the fintech space?

JG: Fintech is one space where you can lead innovation by creating fresh solutions to unsolved problems. As a banker with in-depth financial knowledge and digital expertise, I realized that building research-based innovative solutions backed by the right domain skills and know-how, can lead to disruption in the market. While awards and recognitions are indeed motivating stepping stones, impact is what matters most when you are building towards leaving a legacy behind.

WFA: Financial inclusion and digitalization are at the heart of your PhD. How do you think the integration of these two areas will transform banking in the next 5-10 years, especially for underserved communities?

JG: There is no faster way to achieve financial inclusion, other than making it digital or phygital. Smartphone penetration has increased 10x in the last ten years and every household today has at least one smartphone. Just last month I launched – a cutting-edge multi-lingual App – PahalSangini – India’s first financial inclusion platform for women offering financial literacy, credit, payments, insurance, e-commerce, etc. all rolled into one common mobile application, for rural women. While this is just one solution, there is scope for many such digital innovations to achieve financial penetration in the underserved communities.

WFA: You’ve been associated with prominent institutions like Equitas Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and HDFC Bank. How did your experiences at these organizations prepare you for your founder role and shape your leadership philosophy?

JG: HDFC Bank, one of the largest and leading banks in the world, was a great learning school for me where I learned real banking with its stringent processes & regulations. I joined the Bank straight out of business school, through campus placement, and went on to become the youngest branch manager at the age of 25. Kotak Mahindra Bank offered a 360-degree banking perspective across multiple business, product, and digital functions along with an intrapreneurship exposure of leading several disruptive analytics and AI-based digital initiatives. And Equitas Bank opened up the world of fintechs for me, right from NiyoX to Lxme. From then on, there was no looking back as I jumped into the fintech world with the entire 360-degree banking perspective, giving me a unique edge in the space. And the best is yet to come…

WFA: As a global thought leader and a TEDx speaker, how do you ensure that you stay at the forefront of fintech innovation? What key trends do you believe will dominate the fintech industry in the coming years?

JG: I look forward to research, networking, forums and conferences, industry workshops, leadership meetings, etc. to contribute as well as to keep a tab on what’s happening in the space. Blockchain, AI, Defi, embedded finance, open banking, digital banks, cybersecurity, superapps, etc. are some of the key fintech trends expected to dominate the industry.

WFA: You’ve been recognized as a Top Performing Banker and a visionary digital leader. What career milestones do you consider your most significant accomplishments, and what advice would you give to young professionals aiming for leadership roles in fintech?

JG: There have been many career milestones, significant amongst which are getting awarded as Best Relationship Manager in Switzerland and Australia with highest scorecard of 351%; youngest branch manager at 25; doubling up 10 years of banking business in just 1 year; initiating Analytics and AI-based Digital solutions; launching India’s fastest growing neo-bank NiyoX with 2 million+ customers; co-founding India’s first financial platform for women LXME; launching India’s first financial inclusion platform PahalSangini and many more. My advice to young professionals aiming for leadership roles is to take risks early on without fearing failure and keep learning/unlearning continuously.

WFA: Aside from your professional career, you’ve represented India as a Youth and Cultural Ambassador and excel in various arts like dance and music. How do these diverse interests influence your work in fintech, and what role do creativity and versatility play in your success?

JG: I am a trained professional dancer and can dance in 10+ different dance forms right from Garba to Bharatnatyam to Salsa, performing dance shows in France, Spain & Japan. I have excelled in creative arts right from childhood, and hence when I took up banking, which is otherwise considered to be a very boring profession, I poured all my creativity into making it the most interesting job on earth. I have done creative banking all throughout and the same gets reflected in my various fintech initiatives as well. Innovation lies at the core of fintech, and I am a natural at it.

Thank you for sharing your time and insights today, Dr Gupta!

To learn more about our revered newest board member, visit her LinkedIn Profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasminbgupta-digitalbank/

ANY.RUN, founded by Aleksey Lapshin, is an advanced online malware analysis platform that enables real-time, interactive research for cybersecurity professionals. It allows users to actively control sandbox simulations and analyze suspicious files with dynamic and static capabilities, offering deeper insights into malware behavior.

The platform’s cloud-based design simplifies analysis with an intuitive interface, reducing equipment costs and making it accessible from any device. ANY.RUN also features a continuously updated malware database, supporting both public research and private threat hunting, making it an essential tool for enhancing cybersecurity efforts globally.

We sat down with the company’s founder, Aleksey Lapshin, to learn more about the World Future Awards-winning firm.

World Future Awards: What inspired you to create ANY.RUN, and how did you identify the need for a more interactive and real-time malware analysis platform?

Aleksey Lapshin: Back when I was a malware analyst, I saw my colleagues having a tough time with the tools they used in their work. The providers of these solutions prioritized business goals over the professionals’ actual needs. This motivated me to take a different path.

The product’s concept was driven by several problems I encountered as a malware analyst. The automated solutions I used provided minimal information about the sample, without allowing me to dig deeper, observe the malware execution process, and make my decision about the threat. The alternative was to use my own virtual machine but setting it up was time-consuming and required frequent adjustments.

This led me to the idea of creating a sandbox that would combine real-time interactivity and control over the analysis process with a detailed view of malicious activities, all within a user-friendly interface. And that’s how ANY.RUN was born.

WFA: ANY.RUN’s interactive nature is one of its key differentiators. Can you explain how this interactivity enhances malware analysis compared to traditional automated tools?

AL: Unlike automated solutions, which limit your ability to engage with the sample and instead rely on their built-in mechanisms to force execution, ANY.RUN gives you control over the analysis process. You can interact with malware and phishing threats in real-time, seeing how they respond to your inputs. 

This is especially useful for multi-stage attacks, as you can safely follow the entire kill chain — from a phishing email to downloading and running the payload. This hands-on approach provides deeper insights and helps you respond more effectively to complex threats.

WFA: The platform is designed for users of all skill levels, from beginners to experienced cybersecurity professionals. What were some of the challenges you faced in creating an intuitive interface that meets the needs of such a diverse audience?

AL: The interface ANY.RUN has today comes from lots of trial and error since our early days. One of the biggest challenges was deciding what information to show first and what to keep in the background.

The result is an organized interface with main sections, each focusing on a specific part of the analysis: processes, network traffic, files, etc. To help the user quickly understand what threat they are dealing with, the sandbox displays tags that link the sample to a specific threat or malware family.

For a deeper look, you can always navigate to the items of your interest to learn more. Whether you want to study traffic for a particular connection, access the Suricata rule used for threat detection, or examine malicious script execution, the sandbox lets you access this info with ease. To highlight important details, we use special indicators.

The IOC and Report buttons are also easy to find, making it simple to download and share the collected information.

WFA: Cyber threats are constantly evolving. How does ANY.RUN stay up to date with the latest malware trends, and how is your platform adapting to these new threats?

AL: At ANY.RUN, our Public Submissions page lists all publicly available reports on threats submitted by our global community of over 500,000 users. This helps our analysts stay updated on the current threat landscape and improve our sandbox’s detection capabilities by writing YARA and Suricata rules, as well as adding signatures for various malicious activities.

Beyond detecting new threats, we regularly add features to enhance users’ analysis abilities. This year we introduced a Linux sandbox environment to help analysts investigate threats targeting the growing number of Linux servers and endpoints.

Thanks to our team’s flexibility, we can adapt to new trends fast. Just to give you an example, last year, we spotted a rise in QR code abuse for malware delivery and quickly added a QR code link extractor to our sandbox, making it easier to analyze such attacks.

Yet, most importantly, we not only keep up with the trends ourselves, but also help our users stay updated on the latest malware and phishing attacks thanks with ANY.RUN’s Threat Intelligence products: TI Lookup and TI Feeds.

For instance, TI Lookup lets you search our threat database using over 40 parameters, like IP addresses, system events, file names and hashes, registry keys, and even YARA rules, to identify emerging and persistent threats, gather context, and explore related sandbox sessions.

WFA: ANY.RUN offers real-time insights and results within minutes. How does this speed benefit cybersecurity professionals in their daily work, especially when dealing with complex or time-sensitive threats?

AL: This allows security teams to run analyses quickly and accurately with ANY.RUN. You can submit a file and get a report in as little as 40 seconds. Such performance is a great advantage for security teams working under time pressure, when resolving an incident or responding to a cyber attack.

The speed of the sandbox is also great for analysts handling many samples daily. We offer API access for automatic submissions and integrations with Splunk and OpenCTI to help clients keep their operations efficient.

Interactivity plays a huge role here too, saving time on steps that are usually required when using automated sandboxes. Instead of downloading a payload from a file-sharing site on your own machine and then submitting it for analysis, you can do it directly within the ANY.RUN sandbox.

However, sometimes a longer investigation is needed. For this, users can extend the analysis in our VMs to up to 24 minutes to thoroughly examine every aspect of the threat without rushing.

WFA: With the rise of sophisticated malware that can evade detection, what unique features or capabilities does ANY.RUN offer to help researchers and analysts uncover hidden threats?

AL: We’re always on the lookout for new evasion techniques to ensure our sandbox can counter them effectively. One key anti-evasion feature in the ANY.RUN sandbox is Residential Proxy. Many malware and phishing threats check where the user’s traffic is coming from. If they detect it’s from a hosting service, they might stop the malware execution or redirect users to a safe site.

The Residential Proxy feature lets you use regular residential IP addresses from dozens of countries. This helps you bypass such checks and force the malware to run. It’s also great for dealing with attacks that target specific regions.

WFA: How does ANY.RUN’s cloud-based infrastructure contribute to the platform’s accessibility and scalability, and how do you see this influencing the future of malware analysis tools?

AL: Thanks to being cloud-based, ANY.RUN can be accessed from anywhere at any time. This makes it easy for users to perform malware analysis without needing specialized hardware or complex setups. This accessibility is especially helpful for remote teams and individuals who need to work on the go.

In terms of scalability, our cloud infrastructure lets us easily adjust resources based on demand. This means we can handle a large number of analyses at once without sacrificing performance. It also allows our clients to scale their teams without investing in additional hardware or infrastructure. They can quickly onboard new analysts and expand their capabilities.

As for the future, I believe that cloud-based cybersecurity solutions will continue to gain popularity. Their flexibility, cost-efficiency, and global accessibility are unmatched.

WFA: Looking ahead, what future developments or features do you envision for ANY.RUN to further empower cybersecurity teams in their fight against cyber threats?

AL: At ANY.RUN, we have a detailed roadmap of new products, features, and updates that we’re closely following. One of our most significant recent releases is Safebrowsing, a service that allows you to quickly open and explore suspicious URLs in an isolated virtual browser, notifying you of any threats.

As for future updates, you can expect even more exciting news for the wider cybersecurity community. Make sure to stay tuned for our latest updates on ANY.RUN’s social media and blog.