2022 has almost come and gone already. Your credit unions are gearing up for holiday promotions and member requests, and before you know it, you’ll be writing “2022” on your transaction records and deposit slips and then crossing it out because you forgot we’re in 2023 now!
We all make mistakes, and some are inevitable, that’s why we wanted to shed some light on the most common disaster recovery concerns as well as highlight some of the biggest 2023 cybersecurity trends.
Mobile Banking is a Big Target
Because your members are doing more and more of their financial housekeeping from their smartphones, there are several reports that mobile banking malware attacks are on the rise – seeing an increase of more than 50% since 2019.
Today, the majority of fraudulent transactions are being initiated from mobile devices, and that includes things like malware, data tampering, phishing attacks, ransomware incidents, and data loss.
Mobile banking will likely remain a top concern for your credit union branches (and for financial institutions as an industry) through 2023 and beyond.
Enhancing the Digital Experience
The work-from-home and remote solutions culture is still going strong in 2022 – expect to see an increased fluidity with which people are completing their work, personal appointments, shopping, finances, and so much more.
This includes optimizing your member-facing digital and mobile assets and services, as well as increasing the efficiency of your employee offboarding. Getting non-employees off your servers and out of your access windows is arguably more important than getting them the access they need at onboarding.
Without access, a new employee’s productivity is slowed, sure, but without timely access revocation, your former employees can slow the productivity of your entire staff.
It’s no longer about training new hires faster, it’s about keeping the incoming and outgoing access requests efficient to minimize gaps in your access security.
Endpoint Security Will Continue to Be Big
One of the most common 2023 cybersecurity trends and disaster recovery concerns includes endpoint security. All these remote and mobile access points mean your credit union’s network has never been more vulnerable from more angles. The IoT (Internet of Things) creates more opportunities for people and businesses to connect, but that same connection can be used to exploit your credit union’s network vulnerabilities.
We’ll see bigger pushes for remote and virtual desktops, increased endpoint security, and more. Data and productivity protection will become top-priority items.
Downtime is something that many of your members are not going to tolerate – and that means using your resources to create big bank solutions on small business and independent credit union budgets.
To help determine your direction for 2023 cybersecurity success, the latter part of 2022 and the first part of 2023 are the perfect windows of opportunity for your credit unions and branches to do some thorough vulnerability assessments.
Including MFA (multifactor authentication) and other access, controls should be educational and operational frontrunners – keeping the right people in and the wrong people out can decrease your chances of a data breach substantially.
Cloud-Based Business Continuity
Too much of your endpoint management and security resides outside the walls of your credit union branches. There are so many branch-sharing initiatives and other remote and mobile banking trends that will continue to raise disaster recovery concerns and top the charts for 2023 cybersecurity trends.
Because of this, your solutions should follow a hybrid model. Storing all your important data and programs in a single location (whether onsite or not) can create vulnerabilities in your disaster recovery strategy.
Cloud-based solutions like those offered at IMS can help diversify your data and create more avenues from which to recover, should your credit union start 2023 with an unexpected breach or data loss attempt.
For some great resources on disaster recovery, check out the Disaster Recovery Journal’s recent article, “Are People Top of Mind in Your 2023 Business Continuity Strategy?”
Need Help with Your Disaster Recovery Plan?
To help address your disaster recovery concerns and set you on the right track to tackle any 2023 cybersecurity trends, our team at IMS wants to offer you an all-inclusive backup service with disaster recovery, too!
Just like your credit union’s main goal is to educate and serve your members, IMS is here to support credit unions with unique and tailored solutions that fit into your CU’s operations. We don’t send you solutions that you have to adjust your credit union network and IT operations for, we are all about filling IT and cybersecurity gaps for CUs large and small.
It’s time someone helped take care of you – reach out to IMS today and let us know how we can help!
