Episode 18 - Chris Pierson on Cybersecurity and Protecting Your Practice

“ . . . First and foremost, making sure that  . . . you have the right policies and procedures in place. You will never accept the email from Chris saying, "Hey, new bank, send the $1 million to this bank as opposed to one I usually use." You will never do that based off just an email. You will verify with a phone call. You verify with an email response. You will verify with something that the person knows that's unique to them and have their relationship manager make sure it's the right voice, right person, right demeanor, all the rest, and you will not effectuate that transfer if anybody thinks otherwise. That is massively critically important and can solve a lot of this.”

Of all the things that can happen to your practice, cybercrime may be the most prevalent, the most damaging, and the most frustrating, because there’s often no way to strike back, nothing to actually “do” to fight back, often even no known entity to blame, just a compromised identity or account, an angry partner or client, an endangered relationship and a loss of faith. Chris Pierson has the answers you need to better protect your practice, protect your systems, protect your client’s data, and keep these pesky and aggressive criminals at bay. In just 30 minutes, you’ll be frightened, angry, hopeful and empowered to shore up your firm’s cybersecurity and be ready if something untoward happens in future.

Dr. Chris Pierson is the founder and CEO of BlackCloak, which specializes in protecting its customers from financial loss, cybercrime, hacking, reputational damage, privacy exposure and identity theft. Dr. Pierson serves on the Department of Homeland Security's data privacy committee, DHS's cybersecurity subcommittee, as a Distinguished Fellow of the Ponemon Institute.

Chris has been fighting cybercrime for over 20 years with DHS, as President of the FBI's Arizona InfraGard and in other roles as chief information security officer for various financial companies. Chris was a founding executive of View Post, the FinTech payments company, serving as their CISO and General Counsel, and was also the first chief privacy officer, senior vice president of Royal Bank of Scotland U.S. operations, leading its privacy and data protection program. Chris was also a corporate attorney for Lewis and Roca, where he established its cybersecurity practice representing companies who were hacked and fell victim to data breaches. Chris is a globally recognized keynote speaker and cybersecurity thought leader, board advisor for startups, and is frequently quoted by the media on cybersecurity and privacy.