Joan Meltzer

In today’s ransomware-prevalent world, adopting a robust cyber resilience strategy is critical to any financial institution’s survival. The businesses that succeed will be those who start now and proactively plan to survive. Sheltered Harbor is the financial industry's approach for how to prepare for a severe but plausible event, with global standards and guides regarding Data Vaulting and Resilience Planning. A paralyzing attack that prevents customers from accessing their accounts could not only destroy an institution, but it could also cause panic that infects the entire financial system. To maintain the public confidence, customer balance information and access to funds must be recovered within 24 hours. To achieve this quickly, critical elements of a robust resiliency strategy include protecting critical assets; segregating customers’ critical data; and preparing to respond to a worst-case event. Sheltered Harbor protocols will ensure accounts can be restored in a matter of hours, after an institution suffers an extreme data corruption or data deletion event. The roadmap for how to do this exists and is already being used by hundreds of financial institutions. It includes a set of heavily tested solutions and certifications. Sheltered Harbor also provides an ecosystem and community of specialized trusted partners to help. Regulators across the globe recognize Sheltered Harbor as the financial industry’s standard setting and certification body for severe but plausible event resilience. Moving quickly after a seismic cyber event is paramount to securing the public’s confidence in our banking system. Sheltered Harbor is the lifeline for survival. To maintain public confidence, it is imperative for the entire industry to make getting Shelter Harbor certified a priority.