October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month.  Take the time this month to review the security posture of your organization.  Every business has something they need to protect, whether it is client data, business intellectual property, finances, etc. your network needs to be secure.  Review the current policies in place and make sure they are up to date and your employees have recently been trained on them.

Not sure where to start? Call SME and we can assist you in getting your network as secure as possible, updating your policies, and training your employees!

Simply Making IT Easier!

During the June 19th Board of Governors meeting, ALTA approved a motion encouraging members to conduct a self-assessment of their adoption of ALTA’s “Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best Practices” no later than September 2014.  “An ongoing compliance management program is essential to protecting the integrity of the real estate transaction,” said Michelle Korsmo, ALTA’s chief executive officer. “Reducing settlement risk and safeguarding consumer money has always been a keystone of the title and settlement business.”

SME’s first step in working towards Best Practice 3 compliance is performing a pre-assessment, which coincides with the approach ALTA’s Board of Governers is encouraging.  SME will forward a comprehensive questionnaire to the agent, when the agent has completed the questionnaire SME will review and prepare the beginning of a road-map towards Best Practice 3 compliance.  Once the road-map is in place the agent will have a better understanding of what needs to be done and how to budget.  Each agent I have worked with says that completing this questionnaire and having a plan in place has made all the difference for them.

Call SME TODAY to get started!

After sponsoring the VLTA, DCLTA, and several agency seminars over the last month, the message being sent to Title Agents and Settlement Services Companies is to “Just Get Started” on the path towards compliance.  ALTA released an updated version of the Best Practices framework in July of 2013 and over 90 days ago Wells Fargo announced that they were endorsing ALTA’s Best Practices, this is not going away.  It is expected that well before the August 1, 2015 deadline  lenders will be reaching out to agents asking where they are in the process of becoming compliant, what will your answer be?  SME has simplified the approach to Best Practice 3, which is centered around securing Non Public Personal Information (NPI), making it more cost-effective and manageable for agents.  Call SME to “Just Get Started’ on the path towards compliance!

SME is also in Annapolis today sponsoring First American’s ‘Knowledge is Power’ Seminar.  Be sure to stop by our table to learn more about SME’s services and how we can assist your agency on meeting ALTA Best Practice 3 compliance.

We look forward to seeing you there!!  Simply Making IT Easier!

SME is the welcome sponsor at this years VLTA convention at the Hyatt in Herdon, VA, starting today June 5th and ending on Saturday June 7th.  Be sure to stop by our booth to learn more about SME’s services and how we can assist your agency on meeting ALTA Best Practice 3 compliance.

We look forward to seeing you there!!  Simply Making IT Easier!

http://www.vlta.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=55

 

 

“We are in the middle of a cyber-war” as stated by Congressman Rogers, at last week’s Cyber Risk Summit in DC. Many small businesses believe that they are ‘too small’ for hackers to care about, that is incorrect.  Hackers do not discriminate based on size of who they attack, the easier the target the better.  Many would be surprised to hear that hacking is a full time job for individuals and/or organizations.  They work their 10 – 12 hour days trying to get into systems and steal financial information, intellectual property, trade secrets, etc.  They will identify an industry, target a weak link, and patiently work until they are successful at getting what they want.  Nothing is 100%, however small businesses can put layers of protection in place that will help mitigate their exposure.

Don’t wait, CALL SME TODAY to review your security program!

SME is attending the Cyber Risk Summit on May 22nd in Washington D.C. where Congressman Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is the Keynote speaker.  SME is looking to expand our knowledge on how to better mitigate the risk of cyber-related exposures facing our clients everyday!

http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20140228/CYBERRISKSUMMIT/140229834

SME is Simply Making IT Easier!

Did you know?

• A hard drive fails every 15 seconds
• 60% of companies that lose their data will go out of business within 6 months
• 32% of data loss is caused by accidental deletion by employees
• 40% of small to medium sized businesses don’t back up their data at all
• Of those who do back their data up 34% fail to test that their data is recoverable, and 77% of those who do test find there are issues recovering the data
• 2,000 laptops with company data are lost or stolen each day
• Recreating data from scratch is estimated to cost between $2,000 and $8,000 per MB

SME offers a secure and cost effective solution for your business.  Don’t wait until disaster strikes; contact us today to get started with SME Online Backup!

SME would like to thank First American Title for inviting us to sponsor the 2014 ‘Tales of Terror’ seminars.  We had a great time listening to the ‘tales’ and met a lot of nice people.  We are looking forward to working with everyone on ALTA Best Practice 3 compliance!

According to the 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, the use of stolen and/or misused credentials, such as user names and passwords, continues to be the top way for hackers to gain access to information. Below are some tips for creating strong passwords.

Contact SME for assistance in creating office policies and procedures for this as well as other Best Practices!

A Strong Password Should:

• Be at least 8 characters in length
• Contain both upper and lowercase alphabetic characters (e.g. A-Z, a-z)
• Have at least one numerical characters (e.g. 0-9)
• Have at least one special character (e.g. ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) – _ + =)

A Strong Password Should Not:

• Spell a word or series of words that can be found in a standard dictionary
• Spell a word with a number added to the beginning and/or the end
• Be based on any personal information such as family name, pet, birthday, etc.
• Be based on a keyboard pattern (e.g. qwerty) or duplicate characters (e.g. aabbccdd)

Use a Passphrase or a Nonsensical Word:

• A passphrase could be a lyric from a song or a favorite quote. An example of a strong passphrase is “Superman is $uper str0ng!”. A nonsensical word can built using the first letter from each word in a phrase (e.g. C$200wpG., represents “Collect $200 when passing Go.”). These typically have additional benefits such as being longer and easier to remember.

The following are vital suggestions for using passwords

• Do not share your password with anyone for any reason.
• Change your passwords periodically—at least every three months.
• Do not write your password down or store in an insecure manner. Never store a password in an unencrypted electronic file or use the “save my password” feature on websites for important passwords.
• Do not use automatic logon functionality on websites or devices.
• Avoid reusing a password.
• Avoid using the same password for multiple accounts or sites.
• If you have an in home Internet router, change the default password. Each router has a basic default username and password combination. This makes it easier for hackers to break into your network.