Properly managing technology is essential to your firm’s business health and keeping your clients’ personal information safe. It can also help you to gain a competitive advantage and do better business In our first guest blog post, Wes Stillman, CEO of RightSize Solutions provides ‘5 Key Technology Management for Every RIA' to help you refine your cybersecurity and technology management plan.
Just as you do for you clients, your responsibility in managing technology requires the ability to look at the past and plan for the future. We get organized. Perhaps we do the things we’ve been putting off, or start to address the symptoms we’ve been ignoring.
As a cybersecurity partner to RIAs, we would like every RIA to think about these 5 questions this month.
By asking these questions now, you can prevent serious issues in the future.
1. Where is your data and who has access to it? Data is lifeblood of your business. It’s essential that you know where it is and who has access.
2. What is your data-loss risk? As a forward-thinking RIA, you must consider what data is potentially at risk and what would be done in case it’s lost.
3. What is your managed response plan? Every RIA needs a detailed, pre-planned response in place that will be employed when incidences of data-risk or data-breach occur.
4. How are you managing third-party risk? While it may seem that your data is totally under your control, your data may also have vulnerabilities through your third-party vendors and partners. How are you managing the risk of third-party vendors who are part of your data ecosystem?
5. What are you doing to train your employees on data safety? Employees are your first line of defense. They have the ability to protect your data or put it at risk. It’s critical that you are teaching them to be more cognitive of data risks and educating them on incident response.
In case the risk of jeopardizing your data isn’t enough to motivate you, keep in mind that the SEC and FINRA are increasingly focused on the security of your data. Keeping your data healthy and safe is more important in 2017 than ever before!
Wes Stillman is CEO of RightSize Solutions, a provider of intelligent cloud technology and business management solutions for advisors. He can be reached at wnstillman@rightsize-solutions.com.
Note: I was honored to be quoted in ‘Making Smart Technology Decisions: Six Steps for a Secure and Efficient IT Infrastructure’ whitepaper which provides useful insight and best practices on some of the most critical issues related to the technology component of an RIA. The paper was published by RightSize Solutions, IT management services and cloud-based cybersecurity solutions.