Practifi, a performance optimisation platform for the wealth management industry, has announced the launch of Practifi Protect, its cyber security product for the Australia and New Zealand markets.
The news comes as the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) warns advisers they are 300 times more likely to be hacked than other types of firms outside the industry.
It also comes just weeks after Australia’s corporate regulators ASIC announced enhanced cyber security and resilience was one of its top four priorities in its Annual Report for 2022[1].
Practifi Protect features monitoring reports that allow advisers to view file access, user logins, report downloads, and page views .
Umesh Banga, Senior Director, Go-to-Market for Practifi said arming firms with the ability to monitor activity and track who is accessing the platform in real-time is critical in addition to being able to identify and flag any suspicious behaviour.
“We have seen first-hand the challenges that some of Australia’s largest corporate firms like Optus[2] and Medibank[3] have faced with recent cyber breaches and the financial advice industry is no different,” Mr. Banga said.
“It has been said that there are two types of advice firms; those who have faced a cyber-attack and those that will. As gatekeepers to the personal data of millions of investors, advisers are right to be concerned about threats from cybercriminals who are trying to break into the data advisers manage.”
With a focus on providing enterprise-grade data encryption, event monitoring and field audit history to guard client data, Protect offers an additional layer of security for firms that desire more control and oversight. That means financial advisers can rely on an additional layer of security for all sensitive client and firm data stored in the platform, even when it’s not actively being used, Mr. Banga added.
“Staying ahead of cyber criminals is difficult and relies on a whole business approach that includes educating workers on how to be safe online as well as embracing the best technology available. We know this keeps our clients up at night, so we created a product to help ease concerns about cyber criminals as the workforce remains largely remote,” Mr. Banga said.
“The financial and reputational costs of not taking responsibility and precautions with sensitive data are steep. Technology partners can help advice firms better manage and shoulder the burden of ongoing cyber threats to their business.”
Figures from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, released this month, found a total of 76,000 reports of cybercrime in Australia during 2022[4], a concerning 13 percent rise in 12 months. The Annual Threat Report complements data released by Axiado earlier this year which found 67% of business-impacting cyber attacks targeted remote workers.[5]
Banga said Protect was designed to build on the enterprise-grade security features embedded in the Practifi platform and help address heightened security risks posed by an increasingly remote employee workforce. It uses encryption to secure health history, account balances, insurance policies, wealth information, and any other personally identifiable information that may be stored in company systems.
“According to the ABS[6], 41% of working Australians regularly worked from home over the last 12 months. However, unsafe Wi-Fi networks, personal device usage, email scams and weaker security control have all led to an increase in cyber attacks amongst remote workers,” said Mr. Banga.
“For many businesses, remote work is here to stay, but with it comes additional vulnerabilities, especially for those handling personally identifiable information. These businesses can best protect themselves by expanding how they approach data protection and security.”
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