CUSO partners working together to defend against cyber attacks

On June 22, 2022, speakers from CU*Answers were invited to participate in the annual CU*NorthWest Leadership Conference held this year in Spokane, WA to discuss services available to assist credit unions in daily network management and information security compliance. One such presentation, titled “Future Technology Advancements Require Modern Cybersecurity Measures”, focused on today’s emerging cyber threat landscape and fresh perspectives on protecting against and responding to potential attacks.

“Our adversaries today are organized and well-funded,” said Jim Lawrence, VP of Business Continuity and AdvantageCIO senior consultant, “and have evolved into an ecosystem of experts utilizing shared platforms, tactics, and intelligence to attack credit unions regardless of size, to disrupt operations and extort sensitive information for financial gain.” True to the collaborative nature of the cuasterisk.com network, partners combine resources, knowledge, and experience to offer affordable solutions to meet the needs of the credit union base.

During the one-hour presentation, key topics included ‘Incident Response for Today’s Modern Threats’, ‘Protecting the Integrity of Backups’, and ‘Keys to an effective Vulnerability Management Program’. “No one credit union is an island when it comes to defending the security of member information,” said Lawrence. “Being part of a credit-union-owned CUSO and core processor automatically makes you part of the collective whole benefiting from a network consisting of more than 300 financial institutions.”

Building on the theme of the conference, “Excelling in the New World”, speakers presented how both AdvantageCIO [CU*Answers] and CU*NorthWest complement each other to offer a combined solution that reflects the true cooperative business model.