Proactive Steps to Promote Employee Cyber Security Compliance

Your organization’s people are your first line of defense against cyber criminals. Unfortunately, they’re also your weakest link. Insiders pose the biggest threat to cyber security in the healthcare industry, and only 13% of public sector employees “take personal responsibility for cyber security.” Here are 10 proactive ways to improve employee cyber security compliance.

Employee Cyber Security Training Should be Mandatory & Continuous

The cyber threat environment is constantly changing, so employee cyber security training is not “one and done.” It is a continuous process that should begin during the onboarding process and continue throughout the employee’s tenure.

Employee Cyber Security Training Is About More than Compliance

Many healthcare organizations make the mistake of focusing employee cyber security training exclusively on HIPAA compliance, and organizations in other industries can fall into similar traps. While compliance is important, it does not automatically equate to cyber security.

Keep Employee Cyber Security Rules & Procedures Simple

Often, employee cyber security manuals are written by the IT department or security personnel, who may fill them with so much “tech-speak” that they require a degree in computer science to decipher. Make sure that your rules and procedures are written in plain language that non-IT employees can easily understand.

Everyone Needs to be Trained

Cyber security is everyone’s responsibility. This includes all levels of employees, from the C-suite down to the receptionist. Don’t forget about part-time employees, seasonal workers and other temps, even interns. Everyone in your organization who has access to a computer must be trained on cyber security best practices.

Have Clear Cyber Threat Reporting Procedures

If one of your employees receives a suspicious email or finds a flash drive on the floor, who should they report the incident to, and how? Make sure your employees know exactly what to do next.

Tie Workplace Cyber Security to Personal Cyber Security

Illustrating why cyber security hygiene is important both in and outside the office is a great way to reinforce training lessons and bolster employee buy-in. Use real-world examples that employees can relate to, such as phishing scams that seek to steal personal account credentials.

Employ User Behavior Analytics & Continuous Monitoring

User behavior analytics, paired with continuous monitoring of network activity, protect your organization on two fronts. First, they allow you to identify employees who are snooping around in areas of your system they don’t need to access to do their jobs. Second, they allow you to identify stolen credentials by flagging logins at odd hours and/or from unusual locations. In either case, you can set up the system to temporarily suspend access until you determine what’s going on.

Regularly Review Employee System Access

The best way to ensure that employees don’t misuse their credentials is to prevent them from doing so in the first place. Employees should be given the minimum amount of system access to perform their jobs, and no more. Access levels should be regularly reviewed for appropriateness.

Don’t Flog Employees for Making Mistakes

Even the most diligent employee can make a mistake. If employees fear being fired for inadvertently clicking on a phishing link, not only will they not report the incident; they may try to cover it up, which could make things even worse. Encourage employees to report missteps as soon as possible, and ensure them that they won’t be disciplined for doing so.

Reward Employees for Good Cyber Behavior

In addition to not beating your employees with sticks, offer some carrots. Recognize employees who flag phishing schemes and other attempted cyber attacks.

The cyber security experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cyber security regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.

Mueller indictments of Russian cyber criminals put election hacking at top of mind

State officials expressed grave concerns about election hacking the day after Special Counsel Robert Mueller handed down indictments of 13 Russian nationals on charges of interfering with the 2016 presidential election. The Washington Post reports:

At a conference of state secretaries of state in Washington, several officials said the government was slow to share information about specific threats faced by states during the 2016 election. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Russian government hackers tried to gain access to voter registration files or public election sites in 21 states.

Although the hackers are not believed to have manipulated or removed data from state systems, experts worry that the attackers might be more successful this year. And state officials say reticence on the part of Homeland Security to share sensitive information about the incidents could hamper efforts to prepare for the midterms.

Granted, the Mueller indictments allege disinformation and propaganda-spreading using social media, not direct election hacking. However, taken together with the attacks on state elections systems, it is now indisputable that Russian cyber criminals used a highly sophisticated, multi-pronged approach to tamper with the 2016 election. While there have been no reported attacks on state systems since, there is no reason to believe that election hacking attempts by Russians or other foreign threat actors will simply cease; if anything, cyber criminals are likely to step up their game during the critical 2018 midterms this November.

These aren’t new issues; cyber security was a top issue leading up to the 2016 election. Everyone agreed then, and everyone continues to agree now, that more needs to be done to prevent election hacking. So, what’s the holdup?

One of the biggest issues in tackling election hacking is the sheer logistics of U.S. elections. The United States doesn’t have one large national “election system”; it has a patchwork of thousands of mini election systems overseen by individual states and local authorities. Some states have hundreds, even thousands of local election agencies; The Washington Post reports that Wisconsin alone has 1,800. To its credit, Wisconsin has encrypted its database and would like to implement multi-factor authentication. However, this would require election employees to have a second device, such as a cell phone, to log in – and not all of them have work-issued phones or even high-speed internet access.

Not surprisingly, funding is also a stumbling block. Even prior to the 2016 elections, cyber security experts were imploring states to ensure that all of their polling places were using either paper ballots with optical scanners or electronic machines capable of producing paper audit trails. However, as we head toward the midterms, five states are still using electronic machines that do not produce audit trails, and another nine have at least some precincts that still lack paper ballots or audit trails. The problem isn’t that these states don’t want to replace their antiquated systems or hire cyber security experts to help them; they simply don’t have the budget to do so.

Congress Must Act to Prevent Election Hacking

Several bills that would appropriate more money for states to secure their systems against election hacking are pending before Congress, including the Secure Elections Act. Congress can also release funding that was authorized by the 2002 Help America Vote Act, but never appropriated.

The integrity of our elections is the cornerstone of our nation’s democracy. Proactive cyber security measures can prevent election hacking, but states cannot be expected to go it alone; cyber attacks do not respect borders.

The cyber security experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cyber security regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.

Latest FINRA Examination Findings Reveal That Firms Have Made Progress with Cyber Security, but Problems Remain

Cyber security remains “one of the principal operational risks facing broker-dealers,” according to the FINRA 2017 Examination Findings Report, and while progress has been made, many broker-dealer firms still have work to do to protect themselves against hackers.

Firms More Aware of Cyber Security Risks

FINRA noted a significant uptick in firms’ awareness of cyber security risks, noting a substantial increase in “attention to cybersecurity challenges over the past two years, including at the executive management level.” Most of the firms FINRA examined had already established or were in the process of establishing risk management programs to address security issues. FINRA noted that firms with the most effective cyber security programs tended to have:

• Strong, risk-based governance structures and processes
• Conducted regular risk assessments and followed up to address areas of concern
• Conducted regular vulnerability and penetration tests
• Conducted regular employee cyber security training
• Conducted comprehensive cyber security reviews of any branch offices

But Better Risk Management & Data Governance Needed

FINRA noted that the quality of firms’ cyber risk management programs varied widely, not only from firm to firm but also within the same organization. By far, the biggest security vulnerability was firms’ own people; the most common threats observed in 2016 and 2017 were all rooted in social engineering: phishing and spearphishing schemes, ransomware (which usually begins with a phishing email), and fraudulent third-party wires (again, usually involving phishing schemes).

The agency highlighted a number of frequent problem areas:

• Access Management – Some firms didn’t adhere to basic procedures such as terminating system access for former employees and monitoring systems for anomalies, such as logins from unusual locations or privileged users granting themselves additional, unwarranted system privileges.
• Risk Assessments – Despite the importance of regular risk assessments, some firms still aren’t doing them; even worse, the firms “could not effectively identify their critical assets and the potential risks to those assets.”
• Vendor Management – Third-party vendor hacks are a serious problem, but some broker-dealers are still not properly vetting their business associates’ cyber security preparedness or sufficiently documenting vendors’ responsibilities in service level agreements.
• Branch Offices – Branch offices tended to have less robust cyber security than home offices; FINRA noted problems with password management, software updates, removable storage device security, data encryption, and reporting incidents.
• Segregation of Duties – Some small and medium-sized firms are not properly segregating responsibilities for cyber security rules and systems changes; for example, at some firms, network engineers are performing cyber security functions without any supervision from cyber security experts.
• Data Loss Prevention – Many firms need stronger DLP protocols, such as applying the same rules that currently protect clients’ Social Security Numbers to other sensitive data, such as account numbers.

Since cyber attacks represent such a serious threat to the U.S. and global financial systems, both FINRA and the SEC, NFA have indicated that cyber security will be of high priority throughout 2018. Firms that run afoul of SEC, NFA and FINRA standards – or, worse yet, suffer a breach – can face millions of dollars in fines. The good news is that a data-centric, integrated risk management approach to cyber security will head off all of the problem areas FINRA discusses in its report.

The cyber security experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cyber security regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.