Criminals have taken their methods of deception to a whole new level in the last 10 years. Today, they are increasingly using more sophisticated tools to steal data from or hold businesses ransom across the globe. Cybersecurity is a real concern for businesses today. Not only is your customer's data your duty to secure, but it’s also your business itself that can suffer harm. Why is cybersecurity important for lenders today?
What We Manage Has Changed
Today, we all live a rich digital life. Our phones do everything for us and our expectations for everything being accessible digitally grow every day.
Our processes have also gone online. No longer do we punch a clock. Instead, we log into a system which manually punches our time no matter where we are in the world. We also use these applications to get things done, from online banking to document storage, it’s all digital.
This poses a real risk to our security. Businesses may not realize just how important having a set cybersecurity plan is. Here are just a few reasons why you should be making this a priority.
- Compromising data is a real risk. Companies now depend heavily on the data they collect. It not only drives marketing but stores our information, workflows, history and even tells us who’s working were. If a cyber incident happens, not only could there be a chance for this data to be stolen but it can now be altered in a way that damages the company’s operational framework.
- Recovery is a costly expense. Not only does a data breach put information at risk to many malicious things, but there can also be potentially devastating financial repercussions to a business no matter what their size may be. Ransomware mitigation and recovery efforts are expensive before you even consider the cost of the “payment” they demand. Plus recovery efforts for data breaches can take hundreds of hours of manpower. In some cases, a specialized team must be called in and experts of this nature are costly.
- Weakened client trust is costly. Customers assume their personal information is safe when they provide it to you. After a cyberattack trust can be affected. Depending on what has occurred, lawsuits can be filed, the daily business you have can be lost and the stress alone of having to tell your customers there has been a hack is over the top. Having secure data and a plan in place to manage threats goes a long way in building trust.
How Can You Secure Your Data?
Programs like those offered by Cirrus are a great start. Not only will you find secure document portals at Cirrus, but they also secure from start to finish. No worries about documents with things like home addresses and social security numbers being stored in someone’s email. Having a secure document portal gives you confidence that everything is where it should be and that it is only being stored securely. If it’s hard to get to, a criminal will more than likely, not waste their time.
Sharing Safely
Today’s workforce works remotely, at a faster pace and using a variety of project management systems. This means there’s no waiting for a paper file to get work done. With cloud-based storage, you can complete a document and when you do, have it presented for the next step in the process to your team members. Because it never leaves the cloud, nothing is lost, and everything is time-stamped as each process is complete. Programs like this are vital to your cybersecurity plan.
If you’ve not created a cybersecurity plan, then it’s time to get started. If you need a system that’s made to keep documents secure, then consider Cirrus. To learn more now, click here.