Cyber Security The Certified Way.
The title insurance industry demands better cyber security.
While we depend on technology to improve our lives, we must recognize its vast potential for both good and evil. People adore their mobile devices because they are powerful. Still, technology’s dark side hides cyber terrorism in its shadow. Today’s cyber criminals include email phishers, identity thieves and hackers. Cyber-attacks are inevitable. However, encrypting sensitive information is the much-needed, most-reliable way to protect individuals, governments, companies and other private organizations from cyber thefts and network attacks.
We fight to defend your “NPI”
Certified protects non-public, personal information, or “NPI,” as a top priority. Only a cyber secured title agency can adequately safeguard your NPI and maintain your network’s security.
Consider how much vulnerable NPI data you have.
Legally, any financial data that can personally identify someone is technically sensitive NPI data.
Think about all the information on a typical loan application:
- Credit card information such as names on the cards, balances and expiration dates
- Banking details like the names of account holders and current balances
- Credit-report scores
Per law, you’re responsible for guarding this data physically and electronically. That means all file cabinets should remain locked. Only authorized individuals should have access. You should evaluate who’s using their smartphones and USB drives in the office.
Both Yahoo and Target had high-level network breaches, so title insurance agencies aren’t the only ones who must watch out for cyber thieves.
Topical information from ALTA feature the latest consumer concerns, and they generally have one dominating theme: Everyone wants to know that they’re doing business with a trustworthy enterprise that protects their personal information. At the very least, administrators can minimize NPI access on a need-to-know basis.
Mobile-friendly systems have hidden dangers too.
Today, we do need to welcome mobile-device usage by converting to bigger platforms. Nevertheless, research has confirmed that you need to pay attention to the security of mobile communications. Protect your mobile communications with appropriate firewalls, restricted cloud access, encryption and supervised security controls.
Follow these top pointers for strong IT security:
- Don’t wait for disaster to strike. Make a written attack-management plan today. As soon as you notice an intruder, or if a data breach happens, know the steps you should take to alert the right law-enforcement channels. Remember that title insurance agencies can’t afford to wait for the government to enforce anti-cyber crime laws. Agencies must act now.
- Create hacker-resistant passwords. Weak passwords make your network extremely vulnerable to hackers who will break into your network and copy your private data. Stronger passwords for your company should always have combinations of both lowercase and uppercase letters, symbols and numbers.
- Always update all your software programs without any delays. Don’t let your staff consider an update notification as “just another annoying reminder that slows me down.” Everyone should immediately install updates so that hackers can’t exploit the latest obvious flaws found in the current software.
- Don’t consider your files safe without encryption. Get a specialist to integrate file-sharing encryption practices that will protect your network.
Our full-service title agency offers cybersecurity to all clients that are best-in-breed for the real estate industry. Contact us now to get the answers you need.