As the New Year dawns, financial firms should only expect greater and more sophisticated attacks. After all, not only do you house personal identifying information, you also have access to client funds. In a recent Investments News round-table, this threat was considered in more detail. There were a number of concerns noted, which include:
- Email. In particular, client generated email should be a real focus because it may be very difficult to determine if it is really the client or a hacker emailing you.
- Your IT infrastructure (hardware/software). Make sure you understand your IT architecture because this is one of the only ways you can assess and correct weaknesses in your systems against possible attack.
- Education. Are you educating your advisors about your systems, policies and procedures and are they educating their clients about caring for their sensitive information that hackers are looking to steal or manipulate to gain access to your systems?
- Vendors. You have to ask yourself how safe is the vendor and should you trust it to have access to your systems because a hacker can access your IT system through a vendor weakness.
There are many more issues that you will likely face when it comes to cyber threats in the coming year. But take one step at a time.
Can you honestly say you are doing all you can about the above. If not, regroup and revisit. If so, move on to review additional risks to your IT environment. After all, you are on the front lines of this battle.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
