Strategic Technology Advisors
Strategic Technology Planning and Compliance for Credit Unions
Strategic Technology Advisors is a consulting and advisory team and CUSO with decades of experience serving credit unions at an executive level. Our experienced team is ready to help your organization achieve its technology goals and business objectives while meeting compliance requirements.
Our Services
Strategic Technology Advisors provides a broad range of consulting and advisory services for credit unions large and small. Our services have been designed to help fulfill the requirements of the CISO or CIO role for those organizations who have not yet reached the size and complexity for a full-time position or are seeking to fill the gaps to achieve and maintain the desired security posture. As a CUSO focused on the credit union industry, we work with you to find the right balance of quality professional services with real world experience.
Virtual CISO/CIO Services
There is a growing demand to fulfil the role of Chief Information/ Security Officer (CISO/CIO) for credit unions who need the knowledge and expertise from this position but may not require a full-time team member. In other cases, a newly hired CISO may have the knowledge but lack the experience to make informed decisions. Regardless of the scope of the need, this service was designed for you. We work with the credit union with objectives outlined up front to drive the strategic initiatives, ensure technology goals are met, and maintain regulatory compliance.
Cybersecurity/IT General Controls Audit
With the ongoing changes and growing complexity of both technology footprint at the credit union, as well as the cybersecurity threat landscape, auditing the controls in place to manage the risk need to be audited on a regular basis. During the annual IT General Controls Audit, our certified team of experts will perform a comprehensive review of your current cybersecurity posture across the organization. We'll provide you not only with a detailed report of your status but help guide your response and remediation efforts.
GLBA Compliance Bundle
Originally enacted in 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) created a baseline level of standards for financial institutions, designed to protect consumers’ personal financial information. The standards relative to credit union operations are described in “12 CFR Part 748, Appendix A. To help credit unions meet these requirements, the GLBA Compliance Bundle was designed which includes:
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Information Security Risk Assessment
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Documented InfoSec Program and Policies
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Incident Response Plan
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Business Continuity Plan with BIA
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Annual report for the Board.
Ransomware Readiness Assessment
The Ransomware Readiness Assessment is designed specifically to help credit unions identify and remediate gaps in preparedness levels in the areas of preventing, detecting, responding, and recovering from ransomware attacks.
We recommend this engagement annually to measure readiness for a ransomware event and your ability to respond. Our experts will review and assess institutions posture specifically to ransomware. We analyze controls designed for prevention, detection, and response. Includes technical, operational, and administrative controls.
M365/Azure
Assessment
Microsoft 365/Azure products and services are widely used in business applications and reside in the public cloud. These products provide critical functions for credit unions enabling business, communication, and collaboration for internal operations, exchange of data and services with vendors, and with the member base. As such, they are a common target of cyberattacks. Keeping M365/Azure configurations optimized and secure can be a challenge as the product suite is constantly evolving. The M365/Azure Assessment is designed to help ensure the appropriate security posture for the tools your staff use daily.
General IT Consulting Support
Not every IT activity or task will fit neatly into a designed product or service. Sometimes a credit union will need someone for a short period of time to help them with a specific project or to help upskill or reskill an existing team member. Whatever the task, our team of industry certified professionals is here to assist. With more than two decades of experience working with credit unions across the country, our knowledge of planning, implementation, training, and evaluation is available to you and your team.
About Us
Strategic Technology Advisors is a CUSO with a laser focus on assisting credit unions in the areas of Strategic Technology Planning and Information Security Compliance. Our team of industry certified professionals have been serving credit unions for more than twenty years with a unique blend of knowledge and skills that bridge the business board room and IT data center.
With the credit union industy as our focus, our consultants and advisors are committed to helping you design the right technology strategy aligned with the goals and objectives of your business plan, in addition to securing your network and meeting your IT compliance requirements.
We invite you to reach out to us and learn more.
Our Process
We understand that today's busy schedules require flexibility and frequent communications to ensure productive and timely project completion. We will seek to use tools such as surveys and questionnaires to help us gather as much information as we can, as well as to minimize the amount of your time required for meetings to fill in any gaps.
For products and services that include documentation as part of the deliverables, you will be provided with drafts along the way to monitor progress as well as inform us of changes required. Once we near a final draft, a documentation "walk-through" meeting will be scheduled perform final edits so that it accurately reflects your credit union's environment and to answer any questions so that all parties understand the content.
Ready to learn what Strategic Technology Advisors can do for you?
Still not convinced? We encourage you to reach out to us to learn more about how you can benefit from putting our decades of experience in helping credit unions achieve their technology and compliance goals to work for you. As a CUSO with the heart of a co-operative, we work with you to find the right balance of quality professional services at an affordable cost. Contact us today!