1/20/2022 10:00 A.M.
Data breaches costing six and seven figures are becoming more common among financial institutions of all sizes. Nearly 70% of respondents of a recent State of Fraud Benchmark Report said their company fell victim to at least $500,000 in fraud in 2022, and only 5% were able to fully recover from their breaches. Seventy-four percent of enterprise organizations were more likely to recover fraud losses, compared to 64% of mid-market organizations and 55% of growth companies.
This shows you that not only are small and midsize businesses a prominent target for cybercrime, but they also experience a greater impact from it than larger organizations.
The FTC Safeguards Rule aims to ensure that financial organizations take a better stance on cybersecurity with the nine main requirements:
- Identify an organization or a qualified employee to head up your cybersecurity program
- Run a risk assessment
- Deploy safeguards and mitigate risks
- Regularly examine your infrastructure
- Train staff on security awareness
- Monitor progress with the designated service provider
- Run cybersecurity updates
- Create and implement an incident response plan
- Regularly report and document progress
This will not only help you “check the boxes” to become defensible in order to avoid a hefty penalty from the FTC, but it will also protect your organization against significant financial loss that data breaches result in. TPx, ACA International’s exclusive Safeguards Rule partner, can help you meet these nine areas of the FTC Safeguards requirements if you need a helping hand. Go to tpx.com/aca to get in touch with TPx experts.
The bottom line is that allocations toward cybersecurity should no longer be viewed as insurance or a nice-to-have but as required costs to deter a larger, much more costly potential situation.
Cybersecurity is not a fad—it is here to stay, and it’s getting tougher every day. Ninety-one percent of the report’s respondents said fraud rates have increased at their organization year-over-year. The sooner your organization has stronger cybersecurity, the better.
