At CMIT Solutions, we work with businesses that are responsible for protecting information their customers don’t want falling into the wrong hands. For companies in financial services, there’s a lot of it.
Banks, credit unions, accounting firms, wealth advisors and other financial service providers deal with financial records, tax documents, account information, employee records and personal information every day.
Most clients aren’t thinking about what happens behind the scenes to keep that information secure. They probably don’t know when your computers were last updated, how your backups work or whether employees are using multi-factor authentication.
They just expect you to have it handled.
And that’s really where cybersecurity becomes important. You don’t want the first sign of a weakness to be an actual security problem.
Do You Know How Secure Your Business Is Right Now?
It’s a simple question, but answering it can be harder than it sounds.
Maybe you have antivirus software on every computer and your files are backed up regularly. Employees have passwords and you’ve been working with the same IT company for years.
That’s a good start.
But businesses change quite a bit, even over a year or two.
Employees leave and new people are hired. Computers get replaced. Someone starts using a new cloud application. More employees work from home. Permissions get added to accounts and sometimes never get taken away.
It’s easy for little things to pile up without anyone really noticing.
An account belonging to a former employee may still be active. A computer might be behind on updates. Someone could be using the same password in more than one place. Backups might be running every night, but when was the last time someone actually tested one?
Those aren’t unusual situations. They’re also the kinds of things worth finding before someone else does.
Why Financial Businesses Need to Pay Attention
Consider what an accounting firm handles during tax season alone. Or the amount of personal and financial information a wealth advisor may have for each client.
Banks and credit unions have even more sensitive information moving through their systems.
All of that has value to cybercriminals.
Protecting it isn’t as simple as installing a security program and letting it run in the background. You also need to consider who has access to information, how they’re accessing it and what happens if one of those accounts is compromised.
Email is another big part of the equation.
Phishing emails don’t always look like obvious scams anymore. Some look like a normal message from a client, coworker, bank or vendor.
The sender’s name looks familiar. The message makes sense. Maybe there’s a link to a shared document or an invoice that needs to be reviewed.
Someone clicks it because there isn’t an obvious reason not to.
That’s why good cybersecurity isn’t only about the technology. Employees are part of it too.
It Helps to Know Where You’re Starting
Businesses sometimes know they should be doing more with cybersecurity but aren’t sure what “more” actually means.
Do you need different security software? Are your backups good enough? Should employees receive additional training? Are there accounts that need stronger protection?
Before spending money or making changes, it makes sense to find out where you currently stand.
The CMIT Solutions Custom Cybersecurity Score is designed to help businesses evaluate their cybersecurity readiness and identify areas that may deserve a closer look.
You may find that most of your security practices are already in good shape.
You may find a few things you didn’t know about.
Both are useful to know.
The Little Things Are Often Easy to Miss
Cybersecurity problems don’t always start with some major failure.
Sometimes it’s an old account nobody remembered to disable.
Sometimes it’s a laptop that hasn’t received an important update.
It could be an employee with access to information they no longer need or a backup that hasn’t been tested in a long time.
Any one of those things can go unnoticed when everyone is busy running the business.
A cybersecurity review gives you a chance to catch them.
It also helps you figure out what actually needs to be fixed instead of assuming you need to buy every new cybersecurity product that comes along.
Your Clients Are Trusting You With More Than Their Money
For a financial business, trust goes beyond handling someone’s money properly.
Clients may be sharing tax returns, Social Security numbers, banking information, business records and other information they would never want made public.
They expect you to take reasonable steps to protect it.
Financial organizations also have compliance requirements that can vary based on the type of business and information being handled. Cybersecurity can play an important role in those efforts, but it isn’t something you address once and never look at again.
People change. Technology changes. Your business changes.
Your security needs to change along with it.
When Did You Last Take a Close Look?
You don’t have to wait until an employee clicks the wrong email or an account starts behaving strangely to take another look at your cybersecurity.
If it has been a while since your business reviewed its security, the CMIT Solutions Custom Cybersecurity Score is a good place to start.
It can help banks, credit unions, accounting firms, wealth advisors and other financial service providers get a clearer idea of where their cybersecurity stands today and what may need attention.
Get your Custom Cybersecurity Score:
https://hubs.li/Q04pF9zt0
Finding a weakness during a cybersecurity review is a lot easier to deal with than finding it after there’s already a problem.
Learn more about CMIT Solutions:
https://cmitsolutions.com/
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