The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod and Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce delved into “Cybersecurity and What You Need to Know to Protect Your Business” in this week’s installment of its Twenty-Minute Tuesdays series.
This week”s panel features Maeghan DeLellis, vice president, branch manager and Small Business Specialist at The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod, and Paul Forni, vice president, Information Security and Red Flags officer.
Forni said best practices include a combination of the following three controls: Technical Controls, such as firewalls, antivirus, and data loss protection software; Administrative Controls, including updating your security updates regularly; and Education and Training, such as understanding phishing and how criminals target employees.
“Phishing has gone up over 600 percent since the beginning of the pandemic,” Forni said. He
stressed the importance of creating strong passwords and changing them periodically to
safeguard customer data and information. “Don’t use the same password for a number of
applications. Don’t write down passwords and leave them unsecured. And if you’re going to
write them down, store them someplace safe.”
DeLellis discussed common issues business owners have with banking technology and keeping
their employees and businesses safe, particularly with the increase in remote work and
unemployment fraud. She advised business owners to monitor their accounts and set up alerts.
Additionally, she cautioned employers not to share account usernames and passwords with employees and to establish separate credentials with any employees needing bank account
access as part of their job function.
DeLellis also offered additional cybersecurity resources for business owners. For example, she
cited The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod’s website, mycapecodbank.com, and the Resources
tab, with links to videos and the Security Center as a place for business owners to start
educating themselves on cybersecurity. Additionally, she cited the Code of Massachusetts
Regulation for data privacy (201 CMR 17,) which sets the standard for the protection of
personal information of residents, found on mass.gov. Other resources included the Federal
Trade Commission, the Department of Homeland Security (US-CERT), SCORE Training, and SBA
resources. The video concluded with a link to a “Cybersecurity Risk Assessment” to evaluate a
businesses’ online safety.
Each prerecorded session can be viewed on the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce landing
page here.
Local business owners or representatives of nonprofit organizations who would like to submit
questions in advance can be done via the chamber’s landing page.
