Physical robberies of financial institutions are becoming less common, but cyber attacks are only getting more common. Today, everyone understands that protecting your clients and company is paramount to staying in any financial services game. However, most decision makers of financial institutions don’t know where to start. Fortunately, the SEC has given some guidelines on how to begin managing cybersecurity compliance risks according to their standards:

• Know what employees have access to and limit access where you can. 
• Loss prevention processes and procedures should be created to help reduce the risk of data loss. 
• Have an incident reporting process in place that all employees are aware of and have access to should a breach occur.
• Training is vital – your staff is the most significant risk factor. Making sure they receive proper cybersecurity training can significantly reduce this risk. 
• Someone needs to be in charge of cybersecurity. This is the chief compliance officer more often than not, but you need a designated person to make sure that cybersecurity standards are being met. 

This list might seem a bit daunting, but there are two main steps you can do to greatly increase how secure you are. First, train your staff. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough. Knowing what looks suspicious in an email or file download can make a huge impact on being secure. 

Second, do your vendor due diligence. Whether you use a software solution or contact each vendor individually, vendor due diligence is key. Knowing what vendors have access too, what PII they store, and their security standards will protect you, your company, and your clients.

That’s it! Cyberthreats seem daunting, and like a constant reality now, but with these simple tips, you can increase your company’s data security.

If you are interested in software that simplifies these processes for you, ask us for a demo of SmartRIA Data Governance!