Protecting the crown jewels during heightened cybersecurity risk periods

As time goes on, financial institutions face more serious and potentially damaging threats from bad actors looking to compromise systems and steal valuable information. These threats can lie internally or externally and be domestic or international. Financial institutions with a firm infrastructure, robust security support and a well-trained staff are in a good position to ward off these harmful threats.

What Credit Unions Can Do

The greatest challenge facing leaders like me is that cybersecurity protocols are always evolving. That’s because bad actors are constantly coming up with new ways to try to exploit targets. As the person in charge of managing the security infrastructure for $3.8 billion Affinity Federal Credit Union, I put a lot of focus into ensuring the crown jewel, our members’ data, is secure and constantly being monitored. The biggest areas of focus include:

• Training: The weakest link in the security chain is humans. It’s imperative that every employee is educated on best practices to handle data and secure accounts. This goes for those working on the back end in data programming and security all the way to staff on the front line. It is the responsibility of all members of a team to do their part to protect against cyber threats. At Affinity FCU, we educate our staff and update our teams regarding the latest threats monthly.

 

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