January 4, 2017 By Mark Samuels 2 min read

The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) published a new cybersecurity regulation for firms operating in the financial sector. The proposal could have serious ramifications for IT decision-makers and their peers.

Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo revealed the updated plan at the end of 2016. The updated proposal spans 14 pages and includes a range of modifications from the initial plan released last September.

This cybersecurity regulation covers a series of best practices, from annual certification to executive sponsorship. The regulation highlights the importance of paying attention to governance concerns, particularly with regard to information security leadership.

New Responsibilities for IT Leadership

The original plan set a deadline of Jan. 1, 2017, for compliance with the new DFS cybersecurity regulation. Banks, insurance companies and other finance firms will now have until March 1 to meet the requirements of the proposal.

As part of the proposal, finance firms must create annual reports that cover material cybersecurity events. These documents must be accepted by the board and appropriate certification forwarded to DFS.

Cybersecurity leadership forms another key tenet of the regulation. Finance firms would need to employ a chief information security officer (CISO) to comply with DFS requirements.

An Adjustment Period

The newly proposed regulation provides financial institutions with more flexibility than the original plan. The adjustments were made after a period of consultation. An additional 30-day comment period will run before the new proposals are enacted in March.

Under the new proposals, firms have 72 hours to report a breach from the time it is discovered. In the original plan, firms had to report within 72 hours of the breach itself.

The original regulation also cited a six-year retention period for data. After consultation, the agency determined that the collection of data could create a bigger potential target for cybercriminals and reduced the retention period to five years.

Cybersecurity Regulation Presents New Challenges

Some influencers believe organizations already face too many compliance requirements. SecurityWeek reported that some experts believe regulations actually take IT specialists away from front-line defense work. Additionally, firms will likely struggle to appoint CISOs per the DFS requirement, as the role of the CISO remains poorly defined.

This anomaly exists because few businesses treat security as an individual line item. Employees with little security expertise too often undertake processes critical to cyberdefense. As a result, many CISOs lack insight into security investments across the enterprise.

More from

How will the Merck settlement affect the insurance industry?

3 min read - A major shift in how cyber insurance works started with an attack on the pharmaceutical giant Merck. Or did it start somewhere else?In June 2017, the NotPetya incident hit some 40,000 Merck computers, destroying data and forcing a months-long recovery process. The attack affected thousands of multinational companies, including Mondelēz and Maersk. In total, the malware caused roughly $10 billion in damage.NotPetya malware exploited two Windows vulnerabilities: EternalBlue, a digital skeleton key leaked from the NSA, and Mimikatz, an exploit…

3 Strategies to overcome data security challenges in 2024

3 min read - There are over 17 billion internet-connected devices in the world — and experts expect that number will surge to almost 30 billion by 2030.This rapidly growing digital ecosystem makes it increasingly challenging to protect people’s privacy. Attackers only need to be right once to seize databases of personally identifiable information (PII), including payment card information, addresses, phone numbers and Social Security numbers.In addition to the ever-present cybersecurity threats, data security teams must consider the growing list of data compliance laws…

ICS CERT predictions for 2024: What you need to know

4 min read - As we work through the first quarter of 2024, various sectors are continuously adapting to increasingly complex cybersecurity threats. Sectors like healthcare, finance, energy and transportation are all regularly widening their digital infrastructure, resulting in larger attack surfaces and greater risk exposure.Kaspersky just released their ICS CERT Predictions for this year, outlining the key cybersecurity challenges industrial enterprises will face in the year ahead. The forecasts emphasize the persistent nature of ransomware threats, the increasing prevalence of cosmopolitical hacktivism, insights…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today