Hello everyone. I welcome you all for the conference 42 DevSecOps 2024. My name is Kiran Nagubandi. I'm glad to be here to discuss with you all about navigating security in subscription economy. I'll be discussing about strategies, metrics, and compliance for sustainable growth. My background and experience as an enterprise and or a solution architect in this area really helped me to contribute this knowledge to the industry. This session dwells into actionable strategies for subscription based businesses to navigate the related challenges effectively while fostering innovation and growth. Join me to explore how to stay ahead in security and compliance. While capitalizing on the subscription boom, I hope to see you all enjoy the session and walk away with some good knowledge after this talk, some key topics, which I'm going to be covering or discussing in today's session are, which are related to, an introduction to the subscription economy while, why security and compliance matters. What are the regulatory compliance essentials? strengthening cyber security payment, enhancing customer trust, educating customers or consumers on the security. And then we'll be discussing some key takeaways at the last and also we'll do, we'll end the session with a small conclusion. Let's talk about the next slide, which is about introduction to the subscription economy. In the age of digitalization, many companies are under increased pressure to change due to product complexity, growing customer requirements, and digital business models. The increasing digitalization of processes and the products has opened up numerous opportunities for the companies to exploit the resulting potential for value creation. And the resultant is the subscription based businesses. Now to understand on a high level, what is a subscription based business? Subscription business is a new form of business model in many industries, which is like a, this is a business model where customers pay a recurring fee to access a product or a service for a specific period. So organizations aims to continuously increase customer benefit. to align the interests of both companies and customers. This can only be achieved by a permanent data exchange or a database learning about the customer behavior and the transfer into, into continuous innovations to increase customer value. And all these efforts, are very much needed and will be done, in the subscription based business models. And due to this fact, subscription based businesses, helps to make industry four times profitable what they are making in a non traditional model or a traditional model. Now, if you look at the statistics. Due to this, because of these initiatives that companies are driving towards moving to the subscription based businesses, the subscription economy has grown over by 435 percent in the last decade. And and these are driven by shifts towards convenient and personalized services. If you look at the market potential, it is expected to reach 1. 5 trillion by 2025. Spanning industries like a SaaS or e commerce, media and healthcare. So it can be like a SaaS can be like a industry like a software as a service or e commerce. e commerce can be like a, any subscription based models can be included there. But in order to, for the companies in order to achieve this, there are challenges too. These are the emerging challenges. which includes, increasing cost consumer expectations for the data privacy because they'll be keep on, there will be a constant exchange of information between the consumer and the systems of the company who is doing the subscription based models. you're growing complexity in the global regulatory compliance. And then you're raising cybersecurity threats with subscription platforms, which are handing more sensitive data. these are very much, need to be addressed by all the companies who are moving towards subscription based model. so we will be going, discussing more in detail, next slides. Let's look at the next slide, why, let's look at why security and compliance matters. Security and compliance are the pillars of a successful subscription business. Nowadays, the machines and plans are connected to the internet and they exchange large amounts of data, which has resulted in a critical information security risk. Whenever there is a loss of knowledge and control, or whenever there is a data misuse or any kind of a manipulation of the transactions of the production data in the context of subscription, in the, in the context of subscription transactions. They are really particularly at a high risk and complimentary to direct and obvious consequences such as loss of production, the attacks are increasingly shifting to non transparents and creeping impairments of production or product quality, which are only apparent at a late stage or the influencing of payment flows. A transparent presentation of possible risks and their scope as well as their interrelationship does not exist. Nowadays, on an average, approximately 62 percent of customers express privacy concerns, and 54 percent are likely to cancel subscriptions after a data breach. Regulatory noncompliance has resulted in fines exceeding 1 billion globally in the past two years. Benefits of prioritizing security and compliance includes, will certainly win the customer trust and loyalty. And it enhances if it's already there and then reduces the risk of fines and reputational damages. If you go to the next one, which is a regulatory compliance essentials. Regulatory compliance is the cornerstone of subscription security. With laws like General Data Protection and Regulation, which is nothing but GDPR, which is based out of the European Union, and California Consumer Protection Act, CCPA in the U. S., these are basically governing the data protection. With 62 percent of consumers. Expressing privacy concerns, companies aligning with these frameworks and the industry standards such as payment card industry data security standards, which is PCI DSS, is essential to mitigate risks and build trust. If you want to understand on a high level, what is GDPR does, they do a, like a data protection principles, they deal with consent management and then breach, notification rules. And if you look at the CCPA, that they are into, they deal with the transference in the data handling, deletion requests, and opt out rights, PCI DSS. They are for securing handling, secure handling of the payment data to protect against fraud. So the practical tips for compliance includes regular audits and updates to align with changing laws, appointing a data protection officer. Transparent privacy policies and the consent forms will certainly mitigate the risk of this particular, global, regulatory compliance and essentials. Let's talk about strengthening the cybersecurity. The subscription business's success hinges on addressing critical, security and compliance challenges. to maintain customer trust and protect sensitive data. The structure of subscription models and their different manifestations based on their risk vulnerabilities are characterized. This allows, suitable cyber security measure to be taken at every early stage. From this basis, companies can secure existing or planned subscription business models, and thus strengthen the trust of business partners and customers. Now, how do you build robust cyber defenses? Now, the key cybersecurity measures include encryption of the customer data at rest and in transit, regular penetration testing to identify vulnerabilities, Use of AI driven threat detection systems to preempt cyber attacks. Now these data points could help companies to consider the needed measures like 30 percent of the reduction in security incidents for companies adopting AI powered defenses in 2023. The average cost of data breach is 4. 45 million in 2023, making a prevention as a critical investment. these data points are not sufficient for the companies to consider that these are, these costs compared to, the implementation costs are pretty, pretty low. So companies can really go for it to save themselves from the potential attacks and also improve their goodwill among the customers. The pro, some of the proactive steps also include employee training to recognize phishing and other threats. And then also some of the things like implementing multi factor authentication for all access points. Now, if you look at the securing payments, securing payment solutions also, they also play a pivotal role as over 50 percent of the subscription payments are now automated. Supporting authentication methods like 3d secure and adhering to the payment card industry Data security standards, which is PCI DSS, which I have already discussed in my earlier slide You know these standards ensure both fraud prevention and a seamless user experience Additionally providing transparent and easy cancellation mechanisms is not only a regulatory necessity, but also a driver for customer loyalty with 32 percent of subscribers valuing hazard free cancellations. Companies has to ensure safe and seamless payment processing. Key challenges in payment security include handling auto payments across multiple geographies, payment preventing fraud while maintaining a seamless user interface. experiences. now there are solutions where, which can be implemented to prevent these challenges or overcome these challenges, which is complying with the PCI DSS to prevent sensitive cardholder data or implement 3d secure protocols, which add an additional authentication layer for online payments. You can also partner with secure payment gateways that support fraud detection. And also, some of the key data points to support these solutions, which could motivate the companies to go with these solutions is like security companies who are following security payment system process or, you know, process they, these secure systems in today's world process over 50 percent of subscription transactions, ensuring compliance and consumer trust. Now, the key insight is that, in the past, the government has been promoting the Businesses using fraud detection reported 40 percent fewer chargebacks in 2023. Now, if you look at the enhancing the customer trust, they basically empower customers with the transparency. Now, having this will certainly, by following these key insights, companies can really increase or enhance the customer trust. suppose providing the easy cancellation policies, improve brand, their trust, and the compliance with the regulatory, like CCPAs or GDPRs. If you look at it, 72 percent of the customers say transparent practices influence their decisions to continue a subscription, which itself says that company should have their transparent practices and processes and policies, which will make, which will be a key factor for retaining their customers. Now, if you look at the transparency in practice, they've clearly defined terms of service and data usage policies, provide real time updates on subscriptions, statuses and payments. Now, if you look at the educating consumers are on the security now. if you, if the companies consider educating customers on the security best practices such as creating strong passwords or and then significantly enhance overall safety, companies that prioritize proactive customer or consumer education have reported a 20 percent reduction in account takeover incidents. So you companies can empower consumers through education, like why we need to educate customers. Because stronger security factors reduce, account takeovers and then fraud incidents. Whoever are the empowered customer, they are more likely to trust and stick with the service and with the company, which in turn increases the company's revenue. The only steps to educate, you can follow the things like regular email campaigns. Or, on, on, on best security practices like creating strong passwords or the ways to create a strong password. and then you have in app reminders to enable multi factor authentications or update payment methods securely. All these are some of the steps to educate the customers so that they all will be in sync with the company's, effort to create a secure environment. if you look at on the high level, the, some of the key takeaways of, of this session includes, so companies thriving in the subscription economy, this session offers data driven insights and innovative frameworks to help businesses build secure compliant and customer centric subscription models that thrive in the digital economy. Security and compliance are critical drivers of success and consumer trust. Adhering to regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and PCI DSS prevents costly fines and reputational risks. Robust cybersecurity measures safeguard sensitive customer data and reduce breach incidents. Transparent policies and easy cancellation build long term customer loyalty. educating customers on security creates a safer and more trusting user database. So on a, to conclude on this session, I would like to say that the subscription economy, the transforming industries, offering convenience and value to both consumers as well as businesses. However, it's rapid growth brings unique challenges in ensuring. Data security, maintaining regulatory compliance and fostering customer trust by prioritizing robust cyber security measures, adhering to global regulations like GDPR or PCI DSS and implementing secure payment system. Businesses can protect sensitive customer information while enabling seamless user experiences. transparency in practices such as easy cancellation policies. are clear data usage terms. It's critical to build long term customer loyalty. Moreover, educating customers about security, best practices empowers them to protect their accounts, further enhancing overall safety and trust. Successful subscription business not only meet these challenges, but leverage them as opportunities to stand out in the competitive market. That's all I want to convey to this group and thank you all for attending this session today. I hope I will, I was able to communicate what I was, mentioning before, and thank you all for this opportunity and thanks to Deb Sikopsti.