When it comes to cybersecurity, one critical thing to understand is that not all organizations are created equally. A retail business would be exposed to threats that are completely different from what a doctor's office would face, thus requiring two different strategies to guarantee accurate protection.
The same is true of financial services organizations and especially your credit unions. To help make sure that your own organization and its members are properly shielded, there are seven cybersecurity measures that you'll want to implement as soon as possible.
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1. Patch Your Vulnerabilities as Quickly as Possible
Attackers are constantly working to exploit vulnerabilities in financial services software soon after they are discovered. If updates are available, download and install them quickly to stay one step ahead.
2. Embrace Endpoint Protection
Endpoint protection helps to standardize security controls for organizations like credit unions. Not only can this be a great way to stifle potential attackers before they have a chance to infiltrate your network, but it will likely stop them entirely.
3. Back Up Everything
Especially in the event that you are hit with something like a ransomware attack, you will need current backups to draw from to keep business operating as normal. To prevent user error (or to make sure something that is so important doesn't fall to the bottom of the "to-do" list), make sure that your backups are automated.
4. Train Your Employees
As the old saying goes, "The best defense is a good offense." If you want your employees to avoid scams and phishing emails, they need to know what one looks like and what to do if they receive one. Train both your employees AND your credit union members for the best results moving forward.
5. Conduct Regular Vulnerability Assessments
You can do everything you can to prevent a cyberattack today—that preparedness might not do you any good when the conditions change tomorrow. Because of that, you should be regularly assessing your cybersecurity posture. What vulnerabilities are you exposed to TODAY and what would you do to quickly stop one if one happened TODAY? This is the kind of testing you should be conducting on a regular basis.
6. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication
This goes for both member accounts and for anything employees are using for work purposes. At the very least, this will prevent something like a single compromised password from acting as a backdoor that a hacker can use to gain access to your entire network.
7. Invest in SOC/Monitoring
This is an additional layer of protection that your credit union can embrace for not only early threat identification, but to make sure that if something does happen, the right people are alerted immediately so they can do something about it.
Stay Ahead of Cybersecurity Threats with FLEX's Comprehensive Solutions
Never make the mistake of assuming that cybersecurity is something you "do once and forget about." Threats are evolving all the time and your credit union's cybersecurity defenses need to evolve as well to keep up.
At FLEX, we have recently authored a Security Services eGuide to make it easier to explore the types of comprehensive cybersecurity solutions that are available to meet your specific needs. To find out more information or to download your copy and start reading, click the button below.
