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Products September 22, 2016
External IT Launches Cybersecurity Program for RIAs
The most overlooked source of data breaches is employee-related negligence, according to an IT firm which just launched an educational program for financial advisers.
Reported by Javier Simon
External IT has launched its Security Awareness Training (SAT) program, which is designed to educate financial advisers and their employees about best practices for using corporate information technology (IT) systems.
The program contains phish testing, reporting, and online training. After completion, External IT also re-tests and measures the effectiveness of the program and delivers the results to the compliance manager of the firm.
“We’ve come to a point in the financial services space where cybersecurity is not only paid attention to, but has become a differentiator among firms,” says Justin Kapahi, technical director of External IT. “But for all of the attention cybersecurity is getting, there’s one important point that is being missed—the majority of security threats are actually originating from inside the walls of these firms. Information is shared through non-secured programs, passwords are being carelessly generated—the list goes on. We’ve developed SAT to provide advisers with clear security guidelines to ensure their information is protected from the inside-out, at every level.”
External IT also has launched the Policy and Procedure Development and Lifecycle Management offering to educate firms about the latest Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority(FINRA) mandates. This program also includes a quarterly cybersecurity update and a customized yearly cybersecurity report.
External IT specializes in offering cloud computing solutions to financial services clients including RIAs and broker dealers. For more information, visit the firm’s website here.