The end of the year and the beginning of the next are busy times for small business owners. But don’t let this distract you from your cybersecurity best practices. The end of one year and the beginning of the next can be a wonderful time for owners of small-to-medium (SMB) sized business. It’s...

There's no better time than National Cybersecurity Awareness Month to consider your firm's cyber risks. But don’t just think about them... take appropriate defensive actions!ver Cyber crime and accidental data breaches happen to small-and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) every day... with...

Financial professionals such as insurance agents, investment advisors, or real estate agents aren’t immune to IRS-related scams. You may think your tax return is safe because you’re more sophisticated than the average consumer. But it’s not, because you’re sitting on significant amounts of...

In October of 2017, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) adopted the Data Security Model Law (Model Law) that requires insurers and other entities licensed by state insurance departments to develop, implement, and maintain an information security program. The model law closely...

Is it any surprise cybercriminals are targeting the financial-services industry? Banks and investment firms hold deposits worth trillions of dollars from hundreds of millions of consumers. Breaching their defenses can yield stupendous paydays for today’s cybercriminals. Meanwhile, insurance...

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed an insurer data security bill into law on May 14, 2018, making the state the first in the nation to enact a version of the NAIC Insurance Data Security Model Law. The law will become effective on January 1, 2019 and apply to insurance companies,...

Once you have a cyber risk plan in place, what’s next? Execute the best practices available for keeping your firm and clients safe. Although there are entire college courses and shelves of books devoted to this topic, here are 11 of the key things you should do, according to leading experts....

For financial professionals, 2017 may go down in history as the year they got serious about cybersecurity. After a series of major hacks hit the news (Equifax, WannaCry Ransomware), the number of total data breaches exploded (reaching 1,293 incidents). Regulators began applying more pressure, and...

As cyber-breaches continued to afflict U.S. businesses in 2017, both small and large-sized businesses continue to give data security a big priority. That’s the takeaway from a recent survey by USI Insurance Services. However, according to its 2017 Cyber Security and Data Privacy Study, the top...

True to its inherent conservatism, the insurance industry has adopted a slow and steady approach to managing cyber risks. Insurers have created new forms of insurance to deal with cyber breaches, and regulators have begun to provide a legal framework for reducing industry exposure to major losses...

At a loss about how to best protect your business against cyber breaches? Then help is on the way. On October 11, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a law that would provide guidance to small businesses, including insurance agencies and financial-services consulting firms, on how to...

The recent Equifax data breach has millions of Americans scratching their heads, wondering how to best lock down their finances against foreign hackers armed with their personal information. According to Dave Sather of Sather Financial, consumers need to move beyond thinking that one year of...

Despite relentless media coverage, fewer than half of advisors (44 percent) say they fully understand cybersecurity risks and even fewer (29 percent) say they’re prepared to manage and mitigate the risks they face. These were two key findings from a Financial Planning Association (FPA) Research...

The popular image of hackers in foreign lands stealing customer data chills the blood of agents, advisors, and insurer company executives alike. However, even though the threat of malicious attacks remains high, there’s an equally high risk of self-inflicted wounds, according to Beazley Breach...

Cyber criminals have hacked the credit reporting agency Equifax, exposing personal information of over 143 million consumers including Social Security Numbers, date of birth, addresses and some driver’s license numbers. A large percentage of all adults in the U.S. were impacted, as well as...

With data breaches at an all-time high—1,093 in 2016 alone, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center—regulators have gotten religion on the cyber-security issue. Over the last two to three years, they’ve conducted surveys, updated their examination protocols and issued enforcement...

Each day seems to bring more news of cyber-attacks and breaches that cripple businesses around the world. But if you’re like most insurance agents and financial advisors, at a certain point you just have to move on from these events to the work that drives your business forward—approaching...

Insurance agents and brokers licensed to operate in New York have a new regulatory concern these days: how to comply with the Empire State’s new cybersecurity regulation. The new rule, reportedly the first in the nation, went live on March 1, 2017. The product of a three-year rule-making...

As an independent financial-services professional, you’re only as good as your data . . . the knowledge in your head and the information stored on your computer. As long as you have access to these resources, you can work for anyone, from anywhere and be as successful as you wish to be. Want to...

Don't make the mistake of thinking that as an independent insurance agent you are immune to a data breach. 62% of cyber-breach victims are small to mid-size businesses. Here are the top four cyber security myths that independent agents believe: .embed-container { position: relative;...

There’s a lot of speculation about what the healthcare industry can expect in 2017. With the presidential election recently behind us and key positions throughout the government changing, privacy and security are likely to remain a hot topic. Tom Price M.D. was nominated as the United States...

Tip One: Establish Privacy Policies One of the first things you can do to get on the right side of HIPAA requirements is to establish privacy policies. These policies need to be enforced and implemented properly, but they should also be documented carefully. In the event that the privacy policy is...

Data breaches, like taxes, are inevitable. No business or organization is immune. Dealing with cyber threats and staying compliant with government and industry requirements is now an inherent risk of doing business for insurers, brokers, agents and other related businesses. While some in insurance...

The following 8 steps will help you properly assess your current electronic communication security situation, provide you with guidance to implement appropriate measures and shield your data from being exposed or exploited. Understand regulatory compliance requirements – to begin planning a...

The job of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is becoming more difficult every year. Today, in addition to being strategic visionaries and leaders, most CEOs must deal with complex legal issues surrounding their organizations. More often they are being held personally responsible for mistakes made by...

The National Association of Professional Agents (NAPA) announced today the launch of a comprehensive Data Breach Compliance and Certification Program specifically designed for independent contractors, agencies and small businesses. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;...

The number of data breaches rose tremendously last year from the year before. According to a report by digital security firm Gemalto, nearly one billion data records were compromised in 1,500 attacks in 2014 – a 78 percent increase in the number of data records either lost or stolen in 2013. This...

Recent data breaches affecting businesses of all sizes have raised consumer awareness. Smaller businesses are more likely to suffer the consequences because there are fewer resources and employees at their disposal. With the loss or theft of just 1,000 client records from a lost or stolen laptop, a...

Staying ahead of cyber-crime is more important now than ever In this edition of your monthly newsletter, we look at the largest theft of digital data so far, safeguards against hackers and a few interesting articles from around the web. As reported by Nicole Perlroth and David Gellesa in The...

Data breaches have become more and more common over the last several years. According to a report from the U.S. Justice Department, about 16.6 million people were affected in 2012. Credit cards (40 percent) and bank accounts (37 percent) were the most common types of misused information. The...

Companies of all sizes rely on critical business data in order to be successful. Based on a Trend Micro-sponsored Ponemon Institute study, more than 78 percent of organizations have suffered at least one data breach over the past two years with another 13 percent being unsure of an attack. Even...

Find out how large corporations like Target, Neiman Marcus and others have recovered from data breach in the past year. Image taken from the Wall Street Journal Jan. 13, 2014 Large corporations like Target, Neiman Marcus and numerous other retailers have had some form of a data breach in the...

As you may know, cyber security is a big issue. It doesn’t take someone being technically sophisticated to become a cybercriminal. Breaches are caused by everything from lost, discarded, or stolen laptops, PDAs, smartphones, and portable memory devices, to innocent procedural errors and acts of...

Identity theft has become a growing concern across the United States as one in 23 people are victims of identity theft. According to a 2009 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report, 69% of identity theft events were non-financial, which include medical, insurance, evading the law, government document...