Case Study: DZ BANK achieves real-time, privacy-preserving detection of hidden cyberattacks with Vectra AI Inc.'s Cognito

DZ BANK enables protection without prying using AI-powered cyberattack detection

DZ BANK, the central institution for more than 900 cooperative banks in Germany with €506 billion in assets and 30,000 employees, needed better detection of advanced persistent threats that signature-based firewalls and IDS/IPS missed. The bank also faced strict privacy and regulatory constraints (GDPR, MiFID II) and had to distinguish benign anomalies from high‑risk attacker behavior without intrusive monitoring.

DZ BANK deployed Vectra Cognito, an AI‑driven network traffic analysis platform that analyzes enriched metadata (not payloads) to detect hidden attackers in data centers, user and IoT devices while preserving privacy. Cognito’s always‑learning behavioral models automatically triage alerts with threat and certainty scores, cut security operations workload by 36×, reduce false positives, help mitigate insider risks and integrate with the bank’s SIEM and managed security teams for faster incident response.

DZ Bank

Matthias Tauber

Senior Services Manager for IT Security