3 Moves Forest Systems is Making to Keep Your Information Safe with Us

As technology evolves, so do the threats and risks. As a result, cybersecurity is becoming an increasingly important need. How significant is that need? In 2023, the FBI received a record number of internet crime complaints from the American public – a total of 880,418. This was a 10% increase over the previous year. Potential losses exceeded $12.5 billion – a 22% increase over the prior year.

While many institutions take a laissez-faire approach to cybersecurity, we are proactive from day one, adopting security standards that rival those at the nation’s top governmental institutions.

Here are three moves Forest Systems is making in 2024 to protect you, your clients, and their respective organizations.

Pressure-testing & certifications to achieve the highest standards

Before we build any new products or features, we make a concerted effort to bring our back-end technology up to the highest security standards in the nation. To that end, we have dedicated the past few years to working towards qualifying for the most prestigious certifications on the market:

• The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework, which helps businesses of all sizes better understand, manage, and reduce their cybersecurity risk and protect their networks and data; and
• The SOC 2, a security framework developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants that specifies how organizations should protect customer data.

Earning these certifications means that our back-end technology can withstand the most rigorous pressure testing that exists today.

Multi-Factor Authentication as a top priority for 2024

Many of you are likely familiar with the concept of MFA, or multi-factor authentication. MFA is the technology you use every time you get locked out of an email or bank account, and you must verify your identity via another method, like text or an authentication app.

Our team saw MFA – and the security of our clients’ accounts – as the highest priority for this year. This month, we are completing the rollout of MFA for all our clients.

Enhanced security for our team also protects you & your information

To protect our nation’s top secrets, defense industry organizations rely on hardware authentication – an ultra-secure form of MFA. Forest Systems has implemented a similar standard. Forest employees must use hardware security keys – small, USB-like devices – to log into any of the services and systems we use. Think of it like a key card that grants access to an office or building.

This heightened level of security provides an extra layer of protection for our clients and for our organization and puts us among the very few financial institutions that have gone to such lengths to protect their clients and their businesses.

What’s next for Forest & cybersecurity

Next up: We are evaluating how artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies can improve our security efforts – with threat analysis, for instance, or in searching for vulnerabilities within our systems.