Mortgage Software Solutions Blog

Many mortgage companies, especially smaller firms, assume that their business is safe from hackers and other potential cyber attacks, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Cyber attacks present just as big of a risk to small mortgage businesses as they do to large, and in many cases, the associated risk is actually larger.

According to NetIQ, 70 percent of all organizations report that they have been the victim of a cyber attack within the last 12 months. This just goes to show how common small-scale cyber attacks are and how important it is that your mortgage business takes the necessary steps to protect itself from potential breaches.

Many organizations employ some basic steps to keep themselves safe, and those small steps by mortgage firms could dispel the incentive for hackers to target them. When the challenge of hacking your network is greater than the reward, would-be attackers may move on to an easier target.

Here are few simple steps that you can take to protect the mobile security of your mortgage business.

1. Password Protection

Every loan officer in your organization should receive some basic training in choosing passwords that will help to protect your mortgage business against cyber attacks. Of course, proper password choices are most important for critical systems, but anywhere an employee logs in needs to have proper password security. One simple method that many businesses use to protect their mobile security is requiring that all employees double-authenticate their login through their smart phone and email in order to log in. Additionally, employees should be trained to include capital letters and symbols within their passwords to reduce the chances of them being cracked.

2. Create Official Company Policies

Recommending that your employees use some best practices for mobile security is simply not enough. You must create official company policies that allow you to spell out exactly what employees need to do to keep your mobile network safe. You should also put in place some ramifications for employees that do not follow the policies.

It can be difficult to explain to your loan officers why mobile security is so important, especially when they are not used to going to extreme measures to protect their home networks. Official policies help to ensure that security is taken seriously.

3. Use Mobile Device Management Software

Mobile device management software, like DeviceGuardian™, allows you to see all of the devices that are connected to your network at any given time, no matter the platform. They are typically integrated with Android, BlackBerry, Windows, iOS and all other major platforms. This will allow you and your IT department to keep a close eye on who is accessing the network and quickly combat any nefarious activities that might be taking place. Mobile device management software is an absolute must-have for mortgage companies with more than a few devices connecting to the network at any given time.

4. Share Information

According to Varmour, about one-third of IT security professionals share information and data with IT security industry groups. Most security professionals have never shared any information at all. What most do not realize is that, while sharing information might not directly benefit their company in the present, it can pay off well into the future, as these groups learn more about the attackers and the organizations that they target. Encourage your IT staff to join a security intelligence sharing group and work with others to improve the industry as a whole.

If you would like to learn more about how you can protect your mortgage company against potential threats and keep your mobile networks safe, please contact us today. We'll schedule a consultation with one of our security experts to explain how you can improve the mobile security at your firm.