It’s no secret that 2020 isn’t going exactly how we imagined (understatement of the year). For a lot of us we celebrated the end of 2019 as we would any other year, excited for a fresh start, hopeful for a “better year”, full of promises, strategic plans, and big growth goals.

We can all agree that Ross Geller unknowingly coined what is now the new word for strategic planning in 2020, “PIVOT”! (don’t act like you didn’t binge every season of Friends during the pandemic).

pivot

Fast forward six months, for some companies it’s been a slow and cautious migration back to the office, but for others there is no future plan to return. The sudden PIVOT to a remote workforce meant new software and hardware needed to be implemented and fast, too fast in fact to ensure proper installation compliance and proper updates to policy.

What’s unfortunate is that fraud and cyber attacks are increasingly prevalent today as attackers continue to evolve with COVID-19, adjusting to hybrid environments, targeting both personal and business systems. They are becoming better organized, better financed, and better equipped.

The financial services sector was no exception to the disruption, as 2020 marked a period of tremendous change, and not just from COVID-19, but from new privacy and cybersecurity regulations. While many financial institutions were ready to start their technology transformation climb, the mandatory shelter-in-place orders due to the global pandemic, shoved the slow and steady technology growth plan, into full on hyper drive mode in a matter of days.

So, now what?  You plan for the all possible futures. Acknowledge the global nature of cybersecurity risk and build a security framework that compliments your current risk management, to strengthen your security posture, and can evolve with technology and business requirements.

Here are just a few best practices to consider.

 

Where are your Assets? What are their Value?

Identify your most important data or mission-critical assets, determine their value and where they are located. Certain advanced technologies and programs can be used to scan for these valuable tidbits and pull this information together quickly and precisely.

Remember, not all data is created equal and requires different levels of protection. Hackers will be more interested in high-value assets than those of lesser importance. Hence, why having this knowledge will allow you to prioritize efforts and adjust risk strategies based on protecting these crucial assets and allocate portions of your budget accordingly.

Recognize Potential Threats

Always be identifying, assessing, and responding to risk. Identifying and understanding the threats and risks of your technology environment allows you to understand how to prioritize and facilitate the implementation of effective security strategies. Threats are factors that can damage, destroy, or compromise valuable data, and they could emerge from internal operations or external relations. For example, an employee who leaves login credentials somewhere easily accessible or noticed can be considered a potential threat. The truth is, our employees are our biggest cybersecurity risk, so make sure you’re training them…they don’t know what they don’t know.

Implement Effective Security Control

Build process that addresses your credit union's specific data security needs. Implement processes like response planning; communications; analysis; mitigation and improvements. Then you can develop, document, and implement a disaster recovery processes to remain resilient!

Don’t Assume You’re Secure

Ah yes, the famous last words of every CEO whose company was breached, “I didn’t know, I thought the security we had in place was top notch” (aka good enough). Think of it this way, you wouldn’t expect your employees to open up a new account for someone without verifying their credentials, right? So, why would you assume the security protecting all your data is bulletproof or compliant without performing a proper vulnerability scan?

Conclusion

We’re more than halfway through 2020, we may not know what the second half of the year has in store but, if there was ever a time to start implementing a proper security framework to your risk management, now would be the time.

More so, whether you were one of the few organizations who were prepared to weather the COVID storm, or whether you were the majority who had to PIVOT quickly to deploy new technologies in order to adapt, your next steps remain the same. Always be assessing!

TS - Transform Protect logo(mini)WE TRANSFORM & PROTECT

We Transform & Protect by putting People Before Technology. We are a Managed Service Provider focused on cybersecurity and cloud solutions that support digital transformations.  We believe that the technology your business relies on should be used to drive  transformation and lead to a seamless user experience.  In uncertain times it’s important to partner with people and companies you can trust.   Think|Stack was built to handle the unpredictable, to help those who weren’t. 

If you’re unsure what to do next or if you have questions about your technology, our Think|Stack tribe is here to help, contact us anytime.

 

About the Author

Ashley Casey

Ashley Casey