Recently, I’ve been getting many questions on ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in Community Banking. Should you implement it? Shouldn’t you? What are the risks? What’s my opinion on this hot topic??

User Access Reviews (UAR) are crucial for financial institutions, examiners and auditors are focusing on them, and best practices mandate managing to least privilege.   However, the process can be complicated and time-consuming. This is why it's important to standardize and simplify the process as much as possible. Our User Access Review Best Practices white paper outlines five steps to help you achieve this. 

One of the most difficult moments in my career happened several years back at an ICBA Live event in New Orleans.   I can immediately go back to that moment…

“The Customer is Why You are in Business”  Allen Duke, Mentor & Father.

Those who know me well have probably heard me talk about my father's impact on me and business.   For those of you who haven’t heard the passion I have related to these lessons I learned, here is some context:

My dad was a manufacturer sales representative for furniture companies, selling furniture to furniture stores across multiple states.  My dad was intentional about teaching me business lessons; some of the most memorable lessons were when I would travel with my dad.  As part of these trips, we would visit his customers all across the territory.  I learned so much from these trips and have many fond memories of the time with my dad…

One of the lessons that he continuously reiterated to me was that “The Customer is Why You are in Business.”   Being in business held a ton of weight, partly because my dad didn’t have a base salary; he only made an income if the furniture stores sold his furniture, and it was embedded in his deep-rooted integrity for going the extra mile.

In case you haven’t heard, we are ecstatic to announce that Beth Sumner has joined us as VP of Customer Success.  Beth has deep roots in community banking, technology, and information security.  As part of her role, she will be a facilitator for our customers to maximize the Finosec impact of helping our customers simplify information security and cybersecurity governance.  She will also be a conduit for our customers to give our team feedback on enhancements and improvements we can make to go the extra mile for our customers.  If you are a customer, be on the lookout for a meeting with Beth in the coming weeks, and if you have known Beth for as many years as I have, you know we are truly blessed to have her on the team.

Step Four in the FINOSEC user access review best practice series is to ensure users who have access to your systems have legitimate duties that justify not only access but their specific permissions for those systems.

Step Three in the FINOSEC user access review best practices series is to rate and prioritize the system risks you identified as the most important systems in Step Two of the UAR Best Practices and align those with the access permissions required.

We learned about the importance of a System Map in Step One: Building the Foundation, last week.

This week, we are discussing Step 2 – Start with the Most Important. In this critical step in the user access review process, you will identify the most important systems by identifying the high-risk activities each system performs.

Let’s acknowledge a few things at the start.

1. User access reviews (UAR) are important, and increasingly so.

2. Examiners expect you to complete them regularly.

3. They’re a crucial element of your overall cybersecurity program.

4. They’re complicated and they take time.