Cybersecurity-“We can’t do this alone”
Those were the words of ALTA Past President Dan Mennenoh when testifying before Congress on the topic of cybersecurity and the related nightmare of wire fraud. Title and settlement providers need to communicate and share sensitive information with real estate professionals, attorneys, lenders and builders. You don’t know what they or their employees might do or what systems they use. Large corporations have the wherewithal to have their own Information Security Departments and to have the needed software systems to secure themselves but what is a title agent to do whether you have 2 employees or 200?
Regulators are also increasingly setting requirements for title agents as to their information security. New York recently enacted what may be a model for other states requiring every title agency to have a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) who can certify to the state as to the agency’s information security. Those first reports are just coming due in New York.
And members of the Bar are also being required to maintain cybersecurity standards for their law offices and accounts that include those accounts and e-mails that they use for title and settlement. In South Carolina if non-public information is hacked from an attorneys’ technology base and if that attorney is found to have not taken appropriate and prudent steps to have put programs in place to guard against it the attorney is subject to disbarment.
And wire fraud is the ugly cousin of cybersecurity. The average bank robber gets away with about $4,000. The average wire fraud costs about $135,000. So information security is not just the law it’s a requirement for survival.
WFG has created a program to answer these needs through Blocks. Our InfoSec Block provides the same type of IS programs and services that national companies have but at affordable and competitive prices for our WFG agents. These are provided through WFG’s WEST Protect division. We have designed “off- the-shelf” packages of services that include:
- A “virtual CISO “program that not only meets the needs of the NY regulations but will be tailored to meet the requirements of future regulatory rules and industry standards.
- Cybersecurity review where WFG’s IS team will review your current practices and provide critical feedback as to your needs.
- IS program creation where our IS team will create a cybersecurity program for your business and/or law practice.
- Incident response services so if you have a cybersecurity breach our IS team will be there to assist you in resolving the breach.
We know that often agents and attorneys need custom IS services and analysis so we created a program where you can spend time talking and working with our WEST Protect division so they can provide you a custom program to meet your needs. Among those custom services are:
- Analysis of your current cybersecurity program as to where are your “holes”.
- Discussion about cybersecurity insurance needs in the present marketplace.
- Creation of IS packages for your business including the use of preferred 3rd party providers where appropriate and cost effective.
So what are you waiting for? The inevitable? We created these services that are unavailable elsewhere in the marketplace Because of You, your business and from your feedback. Contact your WFG Agency contact today so they can start on the road to having as good an information security program as available in the market today. You’ll sleep better.