While AI-enabled cyberattacks keep rising during the year 2025, financial institutions face historically unprecedented risk associated with third-party software vendors. Andrew Stanford, CEO of Dark Arts Limited, announced today why his company now insists on Iron Software's IronPDF for document handling during highly sensitive client assignments—namely, due to a zero-retention software approach as a paramount distinguishing factor compared to solutions offered by the cloud-based or those requiring AI-based integration.

"The biggest risk for APAC banks is not hackers but regulators. Breach or improperly processed data set? That's millions in fines," noted Iron Software CEO Cameron Rimington.

That warning is already unfolding. In August 2025, Australia's privacy regulator brought a historic case against telco Optus for a data breach in 2022 affecting 9.5 million customers, with the possibility of fines up to A$2.2 million per customer record.

Internationally, the case is not any better. Financial institutions internationally lost an average of US $6.08 million for each data breach in 2024. Financial institutions lost approximately US $2.5 billion for the years 2020-2024 due to cyberattacks.

Why Processing Data Locally Is Important in 2025

Stanford emphasized how AI has fundamentally reshaped the cyber threat landscape.

Previously, script-kiddies required programming expertise. today ai reduces the barrier—anyone can initiate advanced attacks. one neglected software propagates risk throughout the entirety of a system.

Unlike cloud-based competitors, IronPDF does these documents entirely on-premises, whether this means doing HTML-to-PDF conversion, reporting, or aiding developers as they create and modify PDFs securely from within enterprise apps. In highly regulated industries, this zero-retention software model becomes a requirement.

Pragmatic Security for High-Stakes Environments

Dark Arts Limited buys central finance platforms, rewrites loan systems, and conducts code-level audits for credit bureaux and other high-risk customers. Stanford elaborated:

“We've seen customers get burnt by software that secretly exports data off for AI 'improvements' or requires connectivity to the cloud just to operate. IronPDF does the exact reverse: all the fundamental .NET PDF operations, such as creating and editing, stay entirely in-customer-system."

Rimington highlighted this further:

“Observations about AI lowering the barrier for cyber attackers perfectly illustrates why enterprises can’t afford software that transmits data externally. Every external connection is now a potential AI-enhanced attack vector. Our zero-retention software architecture eliminates that entire category of risk.”

Momentum Towards Zero-Retention Software

The increasing popularity of IronPDF signals a larger trend in the industry. As the giants of the tech universe, Google and Microsoft, start supporting air-gapped deployments, Iron Software designed its suite from the beginning based on this concept.

Stanford compared IronPDF side by side with other PDF libraries, including Apryse, Aspose, and Syncfusion—all of which had power but complexity and risk potential in secure environments. IronPDF, on the other hand, provides all the same developer functionality—HTML-to-PDF conversion, generating of PDF, and C#/.NET-based PDF edit—that does not send customer data.

A Peek into the Future

As APAC financial institutions brace for the stricter data sovereignty regulations due later in 2025, cybersecurity professionals concur: the days of assuming third-party data handling are gone.

For Iron Software, the shift confirms a decade-long wager on local-first architecture. The firm cites a 340% rise in enterprise interest from APAC financial institutions during the year 2025 alone.

"When one improperly handled PDF causes a A$2.2 million fine, the math is straightforward," Rimington explained. "Each byte that departs your premises is a liability. Each byte that remains is your liability."

Optus's suit in Australia is already rocking boardrooms. Rimington has announced that CTOs are now scrutinizing each and every tool in their own stack with one key question: Does this software phone home?

The head of Iron Software forecast a corporate purchase overhaul: "In 2020, the firms wanted SOC 2 compliance. In 2023, they wanted products with artificial intelligence. In 2025, they want air-gapped capability. In 2026, I forecast zero-retention software is table stakes for any product touching financial data."

As a senior risk officer at one of the big Australian banks explained to Dark Arts one time during an audit: "We used to fear hackers getting in. Now we fear the software from our own company pushing the data out." In the year 2025, this issue finally receives a fix—and increasingly, one acceptable remedy: zero-retention software.