Have you heard of the recent massive data leak? Of course, but which one? It seems like there is a new corporate data breach every day. As the pandemic rages on, industries such as financial and healthcare continue to see new vulnerabilities and additional cyber-attacks. Now more than ever, financial leadership needs to focus on IT security to protect their client’s confidential information and their company’s revenue and reputation.
WHO is This?
There have been multiple alerts from government agencies that scammers are trying to capitalize on the pandemic and people’s concern as a vulnerability. Fake emails from the World Health Organization have been circulating where criminals pose as the WHO with important COVID-19 updates. In classic phishing fashion, once someone clicks one of the nefarious links, the victim’s device(s) are infected with malware. With more people working from home, more businesses are compromised in this manner.
High-Value Targets
The financial industry is full of money -- obviously. Not just the organization’s themselves, who may have a high cash value, but the clients they manage and hold critical confidential data for. In 2019, research from IBM Security found that the average cost of a data breach comes at a whopping $3.9 million. But that is just the beginning, the ramifications of a breach financially reach years beyond the incident.
Some Good Data Habits for Finance
Besides enlisting the help of IT security experts to help you secure all of the various endpoints within your financial enterprise and monitor and maintain patches and security protocols, there are some easy no-nonsense habits for leadership to pass down the line.
Email Hygiene
One of the most common pitfalls for employees is falling for a phony email, clicking a bad link, or opening an infected attachment. Email is also the medium by which criminals manipulate victims into giving sensitive information or login credentials for financial organization's IT systems. The solution? Awareness. Conduct regular security and email best practices training for all employees -- especially remote workers.
Don’t Disrupt Yourself
There is a lot of pressure in today’s market to get innovative products to market as quickly as possible. This isn’t the time to prematurely release a new app or MVP that hasn’t been thoroughly tested for vulnerabilities like backdoor exploits. Ensure you take every step in the due diligence when adopting new technology and releasing new apps or software for your customers.
Clean Up Old Data
A common problem in the financial industry is the backlogs of old data that is ripe for the picking. Despite being heavily regulated, many financial companies fall victim to failing to store stale data properly. Employees will often delete records and forget it -- but all too often, this is not enough to wipe the digital slate clean.
Offensive vs. Defensive for IT
While it's critical to keep your IT security on the defensive, you must also have an offensive approach to compliment your firewalls, scanners, and patching routines. How can your financial business become more proactive about security? For starters, take email security very seriously. Implement the most advanced and up-to-date email security systems available and pair it with routine awareness education. Awareness training is key, as Benjamin Franklin’s maxim goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
If you’re ready to take employee email security training more seriously and need assistance designing, implementing, and delivering the curriculum, contact the network security professionals at Emerge IT today at 859-746-1030. We can help ensure your IT systems are fully protected to the latest financial industry standards and regulations as well as launch a proactive strategy that involves employee awareness.