As a financial advisor, you are acutely aware that you need to take every precaution available to protect your clients’ sensitive personal data. But one area of cybersecurity you may not have considered is your business’s online presence and the electronic tools you use for your day-to-day operations.
Running and marketing your business relies on a variety of online tools. These tools are essential for staying in touch with your clients, from social media platforms to email marketing services to websites. When working with marketing agencies and other support staff, cybersecurity risks are always present.
Taking the right precautions, such as implementing two-factor authentication, firewalls, and encryption, protects data in transit and reduces cybersecurity risk. Focusing on careful password management when working with a team reduces the risk of cybercrime and offers peace of mind.
Is Your Brand’s Reputation at Risk?
According to the latest hacking statistics by the FBI, the public reported 847,376 complaints of cybercrime in 2021, with companies reporting 50% more cyberattacks per week compared to 2020. Among those cyberattacks were businesses that lost access to their website, Facebook or LinkedIn profile, email marketing platform, and more.
Imagine the loss of trust your business would experience if your website was hacked and your homepage replaced with an inappropriate advertisement, or if every time someone visited one of your web pages, a malicious file was downloaded to the visitor’s computer. What would happen to your reputation if your Facebook profile was taken over and used to send spam via Facebook Messenger to all your followers? Or if your email marketing platform was broken into, your entire mailing list could be stolen and added to spammers’ databases.
While hackers have a variety of ways of trying to get into your accounts, their primary method is simply logging in with your username and password. That’s why a strong password is your first defense against being hacked. A strong password should be at least eight characters long and contain a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. Each password for each account should be unique, and you shouldn’t use any common words or numbers that could be easily guessed (like a child’s, parent’s, or pet’s name, year of birth, phone number, etc.) By following these simple guidelines, you can greatly reduce your risk of being hacked.
Using Password Managers
Following good security practices creates a new problem: Remembering all those passwords without writing them down somewhere that they could easily be stolen. That's where password managers come in. Password managers are software programs that help you securely store and manage your passwords.
These tools are handy, especially when working with a team that needs to access your online systems. And not only do they help you keep track of all your passwords, but they can also create unique, strong passwords for you on the fly.
Here are two of the top password managers my clients often use:
LastPass
LastPass is one of the market's leading password managers, popular with financial advisors. It generates strong passwords for new accounts and automatically updates passwords for existing accounts, fills passwords for you automatically (unless you disable that feature), and even allows you to share passwords with other LastPass users securely. And if you ever forget one of your passwords, LastPass has you covered with its password recovery feature.
LastPass is free, with premium features available for a monthly subscription. The service offers a 30-day free trial of premium features. It’s highly rated by users and has been featured in Consumer Reports, PC Magazine, and Lifehacker. With LastPass, you can rest assured that your passwords are safe and secure. So if you're looking for a password manager that can give you convenience and peace of mind, it’s worth considering.
NordPass
NordPass is another password manager popular among financial advisors. Using military-grade encryption to keep your data safe, NordPass offers a secure, centralized place to store passwords and other sensitive information.
The software includes features to help you stay organized and efficient by generating strong, unique passwords for each account. It is compatible with all major browsers, automatically fills in password fields when logging into websites, and can be customized to fit the user's specific needs. It’s an ideal password manager for financial advisors looking for a secure and user-friendly solution.
A Responsibility to Your Brand
You already have good security measures in place for your client's data, but that may all be for nothing if your reputation is damaged by a hack of your online presence or marketing tools. If clients can’t trust you to keep your business interests secure, they may doubt whether they can trust you to secure their personal financial data. The most effective way to keep all of your accounts secure is through good password practices. Using a password management tool makes that a simple and easy task.
