Login
ISCOVER
While technology has brought brokers benefits, it's also brought threats in the form of cyber crime. LMG is making its brokers more resilient to the digital challenge.
The popularity of brokers has grown exponentially within the financial ecosystem - a direct result of the trusted relationships they’ve developed with customers.
But like any popular service provider, their rising profile - and the client information they hold - has attracted the interest of cyber criminals.
LMG views cyber security for brokers as integral to maintaining the hard-won trust of their customers, as well as relationships with lenders and business partners.
Luke Jarmaine, Chief Information Security Officer at LMG, has more than 20 years’ experience in data protection strategies and IT frameworks. His career has taken him from managing nationally sensitive material and systems in the national Defence Department to the corporate sphere with QBE, Westpac and Virgin.
Mr Jarmaine leads LMG’s holistic response to cybersafety, helping brokers maintain their reputations with customers, avoid disruptions and threats, and instil confidence in their everyday operations.
“LMG stands with its brokers to help keep our business partners stay cyber safe; securing their data, their clients’ data, providing them with secure-by-default platforms and equipping them with the knowledge and services needed to navigate a constantly evolving cyber threat landscape,” he said.
LMG’s commitment to security
Brokers and their businesses face recurring challenges to being cyber safe:
- Phishing attacks - this tactic aims to trick employees into revealing sensitive or financial information, login credentials, or clicking links that embed malicious code in the user’s device;
- Targeted Impersonation Scams - criminals pretend to be a trusted party in an existing or new transaction with an employee or broker;
- Ransomware - a criminal gains access to hosted or managed data, either disrupting its availability, confidentiality, or integrity to extort associated parties.
LMG’s strategy aims to protect its brokers and their businesses through:
- building on compliance services to provide a portfolio of cyber support capabilities across memberships, and delivering affordable and effective protection to brokers;
- leveraging partnerships with security vendors to build cyber awareness amongst the network and protect their day-to-day operations;
- establishing effective cyber training modules in LMG’s central learning and development platform, Brokerversity;
- providing cyber education and awareness engagement sessions via broker conferences, state engagements and ad-hoc requests;
- communicating regularly with brokers on topical cyber areas.
“Brokers have developed trusted relationships with their customers,” said Mr Jarmaine.
“LMG is committed to ensuring its businesses are safe in this continually evolving digital world, helping brokers and Customer Service Managers become better educated, prevent and recognise threats, preserving their trusted relationships in the process.”
Building confidence in LMG’s systems
LMG is also committed to instilling confidence amongst its brokers in how it, as their aggregator, handles data.
LMG will keep up-to-date with international standard best-practice industry certifications and be held accountable to independent auditing. In doing so, LMG will build and maintain confidence for brokers and lenders, demonstrating a commitment to securely managing data and protecting the privacy of clients.
On-the-ground support
LMG has dedicated consultants around Australia who help brokers stay safe in the evolving challenge of cybersecurity.
Consultants offer multi-tiered support around cyber security:
- educating brokers on regulatory requirements for the protection of data;
- updating checklists within MyCRM’s learning Hub showing brokers how to spot email and SMS phishing scams, ransomware and exchanging information on public WiFi, and;
- if needed, they act as a conduit with LMG’s IT Security team to help businesses fortify their online activity.
An ever-present threat
Over his 20-year career in cybersecurity, Mr Jarmaine has witnessed the capabilities of ‘threat actors’ increase with the evolution of technology. While tech advancements have enabled brokers to work smarter and more efficiently, the risk of cyber attacks has increased commensurately.
For brokers, a data breach poses long-lasting damage to their reputation. Existing customers will lose trust while new clients will unlikely share their information with them.
Data breaches can also result in costly fines and sanctions from the regulator for failure to meet data protection requirements. In addition, a data breach can result in significant direct costs such as the cost of investigating and remediating the breach, as well as potential legal costs if the breach resulted from negligence.
“The publicity surrounding data attacks on major brands in Australia has increased the public’s awareness of cybersecurity,” said Mr Jarmaine.
“Customers no longer want their broker to provide them trusted advice on the right loan product, structure and ongoing support on their financial journey; they also want to know their data is protected from cyber criminals.
“Cybersecurity will be an ever-present challenge. As technology advances, so too does the sophistication of threat actors. Brokers need to adopt a strategy that protects their business and reputation from these threats.”
Your clients and your business deserve the best protection in the changing digital world. Speak to someone who gets it.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION