Is your board secure? Could your directors’ iPads or phones be hacked? Are your board materials safe?
Corporate cyber-security is probably the hottest of this year’s hot-button issues for directors: how to protect customer data, respond to an attack and minimize legal and reputational damage. But whose responsibility is directors’ own cyber-security? Next week Corporate Secretary will offer a webinar with vital advice for corporate secretaries, general counsel and their boards about protecting board communications and other materials.
Daniel Stein, partner with Richards Kibbe & Orbe, will kick off the webinar with a look at the current level of risk to a corporation as a whole, including trends in the objectives, targets and means of cyber-attacks. He’ll also sum up the processes boards should have in place to assess cyber-risk, mitigate it and respond to an attack if one happens.
‘Board members don’t have to be cyber-security experts themselves, but they do need to understand the challenges and the risks,’ says Jeffry Powell, executive vice president of sales for North America at Diligent Board Member Services, who will also be on the webinar. ‘What are the potential consequences of an attack, and what are the possible responses? Who on the board and in the company is responsible for cyber-security, and what type of reporting is needed?’
Powell will drill down to risks specific to board communications, and provide a recap of problems as well as suggestions for educating board members and setting safeguards.
‘Directors are privy to confidential and market-moving information, yet boards today are global, and directors are carrying around information on their iPads and phones,’ Powell says. ‘Boards need to address how they protect company information and, on another level, how they protect the access [rights] and communications of individual board members.’
With Diligent as our webinar partner, and with Diligent Boardbooks the most widely used board portal, the webinar will definitely cover board portal security, including how to assess it when adopting a new portal and making use of security features if you already have one. But our remit is much broader than that, and the discussion should be of interest to all corporate secretaries and GRC officers wanting to get themselves – and their boards – quickly up to speed on cyber-security.
Corporate Secretary Webinar:
Using technology to protect the board ‒ secure communications, cyber-security and IT risks
May 13, 2014
