According to NIST, “protection” involves distinct actions to ensure identity management and access control; cybersecurity awareness and training; risk-based strategies for maintaining the confidentiality and availability of information; rigorous processes and procedures; system maintenance; and audit logs.
STREAMLINED SOFTWARE
The average wealth management firm uses more than 75 different software technologies and seven different software agents installed on their endpoints for IT and cybersecurity. That makes it cumbersome and time-consuming to protect sensitive data. Worse still, many of those tools were not designed for advice practices.
The Ponemon Institute says that the faster a data breach is spotted and put under control, the less burdensome its cost will be for firms. Beacon Strategies goes a step further and says that, for broker-dealers and RIAs, the best approach is avoiding unnecessary cyber incidents to begin with, namely by adopting a unified platform designed for independent advisory firms.
While it may be debatable which platform is best for every firm and every advisor, there should be no debate that now is the time to act, for both the sake of your business and the best interests of your clients.
Sid Yenamandra is the CEO of Entreda (www.entreda.com, the leading provider of comprehensive cybersecurity solutions for the independent financial advice industry). Chip Kispert is the founder of Beacon Strategies (https://beaconstrategiesllc.com/), a retail wealth management industry-focused growth strategy consultancy, which recently released a cybersecurity white paper outlining costs of data breaches for independent firms