5 steps to minimize your cyber-liability
by. Henry Meier
I’m here to tell you this morning that you will be breached and if you have been already, you will be again. Cybercriminals are chameleons and they have the money to quickly adjust to the latest techniques meant to stop them.
For example, remember when “dual authentication” of your customer accounts was all the rage in IT security circles? The FFEIC even came out with a guidance mandating that depository institutions implement systems that demonstrate two forms of identification. It was originally updated in 2005 and updated again in 2012 to emphasize the need to “layer” your IT security.
To what do I owe my gloomy morning forecast? Two informative posts, one by the CU Times and the other by the Information Technology Website underscored just how fast moving the game of cyber security cat and mouse is and unfortunately the bad guys win fairly often. Specifically, hackers have broken into 34 banks in Asia and Europe by bypassing a dual authentication system developed by Android and used for online banking. Check with your IT people to get the technical details, but the basic idea is that they used email requests to lure customers to a fake website. Marks opened the door to hackers by opening the email and going to the site through which the hackers could steal all the information they needed to get by the dual authentication system. What is astounding the experts is that the banks used SMS technology, which requires a customer to enter a new password every time they access an account. This is above and beyond what most U.S. credit unions and banks require.
So, is there anything you can do to mitigate the risk beyond making sure that you have a good computer person on speed dial? In looking at cases examining the liability of financial institutions for data breaches, here are some of the points I would keep in mind. Although many of them are most relevant to those of you who offer business accounts, NCUA regulations require all of you to identify and monitor the “red flags” of identity theft on an ongoing basis.
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