Steps to Increase Cybersecurity for EB-5 Regional Centers
In an age of ever-present cyberattacks and email phishing scams , business owners need to proactively take measures to protect both the company ' s and clients ' personal information .
By Richard Kristof
An EB-5 regional center is a financial institution , which must take precautions when it comes to the security of investors ’ personal information and the finances of the projects the center supports . Security is achieved from a plan , not by accident , and that plan needs to acknowledge that any weak link provides a vulnerability that might allow cybercriminals access to information that could jeopardize the business .
Cybercrime is part of daily life . Protecting yourself , your investors and your projects requires taking the threats seriously and having all the proper protections . You can ’ t wait until you get hacked or fall victim to a ransomware attack . If that happens , the damage is already done , and there is very little that others can do for you . Protection against cybercrime must be handled proactively , like those in the financial services sector have done for decades .
WHAT IS THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE SECURITY CHAIN ?
Internal users are the biggest concern , starting with passwords . Passwords are easy for to remember and then use them for multiple systems . Even worse , most of us don ’ t change them regularly , which can allow the breech of one system to provide access to other systems with only a little detail from your website or social media . Simply implementing a password policy for your business will go a long way toward adding a layer of security to protect against this common threat . Using a password vault like 1Password or LastPass is a huge time-saver and can greatly increase your password security .
THE PERCEPTION OF SECURITY WORKS BOTH WAYS
Secure socket layer ( SSL ) certificates have long been considered unnecessary for information-based websites until Google and others started to brand those sites unsafe . Furthermore , the new search engine optimization ( SEO ) algorithms lower the page ranks of sites not behind proper SSL certificates , giving more reason to add the relatively inexpensive coverage . In a random search of active regional centers , many can be found to not be using SSL certificates for their websites . Cybersecurity is such an important part of running a financial institution that someone in your organization , even if you run a three-person operation , needs to be designated as your security officer and have documented
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