GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.–At the 2015 CU*South Visionary Conference and Annual Meeting held in New Orleans, attendees participated in a discussion and presentation on cybersecurity with guidance on mitigating cyber threats that that are affecting credit unions.
As partners in the cuasterisk.com network, CU*Answers, CU*South, and Site-Four work closely to not only protect the core business, but also to assist CU*BASE® credit unions in assessing and enhancing their cybersecurity preparedness throughout their organization.
“It’s important that credit unions take significant steps in an effort to build cyber resilience that includes enhancing the risk management process to better identify and monitor cyber threats,” says Jim Lawrence, CBCP, conference presenter and Manager of Business Continuity at CU*Answers. “This process begins with a fresh understanding of the organization and the environment it operates in, through the lens of cybersecurity.”
As part of their commitment to the network of 200+ credit union clients, CU*Answers, a cooperative CUSO, provides professional education courses (classroom and web-based) and consulting services on topics relevant to the needs and current events of the industry. Included in the series of courses offered on the topic of cybersecurity, interest in business continuity and resilience continues to grow.
New Operational Tools
Separately, CU*Anwers said it has notified its in-house credit union clients that the fall core software release will include an enhanced set of operational tools. According to the CUSO, these tools are being released under a brand called CU*BASE Operator Edition.
Jeff Miller, OpsEngine Business Development Manager at CU*Answers, said, “These tools are the culmination of a year-long project designed to help our in-house credit unions leverage the investments our CUSO has made to effectively manage our SaaS online networks that serve more than two hundred clients across five time zones. CU*BASE Operator Edition was designed especially for our self-processing partners and their daily operations teams. Its unique user interface facilitates a full suite of receiving, posting, and system management tools that will help our partners manage their ongoing processing cycles more effectively.”
According to Miller, CU*BASE Operator Edition will be available as part of the CUSO’s 15.2 core system upgrade on Nov. 9th.
In addition, CU*Answers said it is also now activating “burstable capacity” on its core IBM servers that support an online user base of nearly two hundred credit unions.
According to CU*Answers Vice President Scott Collins, the CUSO is leveraging “functionality that is built-in by IBM as part of their enterprise-grade Power i servers.” Collins continued, “The IBM Power i servers that run our core data processing business allow for elastic capacity on demand (ECoD)as a fundamental component of their IBM I operating system. ECoD allows our CUSO to activate memory and/or processors on a daily basis as our business needs dictate. This allows us to grow into our server capability without the larger expense of permanently upgrading its capacity.”
Vilker Passes CAMS Exam
Also at CU*Answers, AuditLink, the audit and compliance division of the CUSO, announced that Jim Vilker, head of the division, has passed the Certified Anti-Money Laundering (CAMS) exam.
“Passing CAMS has been a professional goal of mine for many years,” said Vilker. “After attending the ACAMS international seminar in Las Vegas last year it became clear that CU*Answers not only needed to become a member, but also have a certified specialist.”
“We strive to be an end-to-end provider of AML tools including features that reside within the core CU*BASE® system. The sheer knowledge gained through achieving this accreditation will without a doubt keep CU*Answers on the cutting edge of current industry trends. Not only will this lead to state of the art system features but will also lead to the dissemination of best practices for the cooperative as a whole for anti-money laundering and terrorist financing,” Vilker went on to say.
AuditLink also does BSA annual reviews and assists credit unions in completing the daily work relative to suspicious activity monitoring. “This designation will further enhance our service offerings and guarantee that our team will deliver the highest quality product in the industry,” concluded Vilker.