Cybersecurity Chat With Mary & Pamela from SunTrust on the Smart Compliance Podcast
On the latest episode of the Smart Compliance Podcast, Pamela Harvey and Mary Harrington stop by to chat with us about all things cybersecurity as well as what you can do to keep yourself protected. Listen in!
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Here are some notable highlights:
Cyber security is a bigger than IT issue. It’s an issue that affects everyone on the front lines who has access to information. It’s not a lot of hackers on the back end that are breaching firewalls, it’s people just sending emails and it’s as simple as one click away to compromise a security.
This is something that we have the ability to put into everyday terms for everyone to understand, regardless of their technical proficiency.
Timestamp:
6:00
MARY: What I find interesting is that there’s really very little training that we give to people at large that have these really powerful devices, in terms of how to stay safe. There’s really, in my mind, there’s a continuum that starts with a full data breach, and that technology challenge with businesses, and it expands all the way down into just everybody that literally has a device in their pocket, a cell phone, a tablet, smart watch, whatever it is.
I think it’s just something that is just really a critical part of how we need to position our own knowledge for the future and how, unfortunately, I just don’t know that any one of us is really capable of keeping up with the pace of these bad actors. I think we can certainly share some best practices that will ultimately at least give us a fighting chance. I think that’s the message I would hope we walk away with today, is just giving ourselves a chance to stay ahead of this.
Timestamp:
15:30
PAMELA: I would say I hear from my dealer clients at least weekly. I hear from at least one or two a week, them letting me know that they’ve experienced some type of fraud, not always cyber fraud. Sometimes it’s check fraud, sometimes it’s cyber fraud, sometimes it’s electronic ACH fraud. But it’s so rampant. Dealers seem to be a target, not only for the volume of checks that they’re writing, but just for the sheer volume of financial activity that goes on in and around a dealership. It is rampant, and I hear about it every single week.
Timestamp:
24:45
MARY: That still leaves us with the weakest link, which is always the human element. That’s a really critical, critical piece. The thing that I cannot stress enough is that entities need to train and need to empower their teams to ask questions. We haven’t really talked as much about email compromise, and I’ll certainly get into that next, but it’s the organizations that have an open dialogue. If someone sees something, they need to say something. That’s where I think we have seen entities ultimately protect themselves, because they have done a good job of getting that word out at every level in the organization. Anybody that has any ability to do even email, needs to understand that they have the power to stop potential loss.
