S1:E9 | Cybersecurity and Teleworking | Compliance In Context

Welcome back to the Securities Compliance podcast. In today’s episode, we discuss the recently adopted amendments to the Investment Adviser Marketing Rule and a new statement from the SEC alerting investors to a rising number of investment scams.

For our interview segment, we welcome in former NSCP Chair and teleworking compliance expert Craig Watanabe to do a deep dive on how firms can best prepare their compliance programs for the increase in teleworking and the types of supervision, cybersecurity, and data privacy issues that are involved there.

Finally, we’ll wrap up today’s show with another installment of the What’s On My Mind series, where we’ll look at the new DOL prohibited transaction exemption for investment advice fiduciaries and the greatest comedy centered around Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

Headlines

• SEC Alerts Investors to Rising Number of Investment Scams
• SEC Adopts Amendments to Investment Adviser Marketing Rule

Interview

• Review the trend toward decentralization and the impact of the pandemic
• Compliance challenges that teleworking introduced
• Fortress versus endpoint security model and teleworking cybersecurity
• Other tips and recommendations for teleworking cybersecurity
• Best practices for handling remote supervision
• Review of regulatory guidance for remote audits

What’s on My Mind

• Groundhog Day, déjà vu, and the new DOL Prohibited Transaction Exemption for Investment Advice Fiduciaries

Quotes:

“And of course, our industry is no exception. We are seeing strong trends toward decentralization, which were evident as you mentioned, prior to the pandemic, but I think just got a huge kick forward with the pandemic and what I think is interesting is most experts believe that this trend will have a residual impact. In other words, when this pandemic is ultimately over, we probably will not go all the way back to baseline, pre-pandemic levels.”

“And so the evolution that we are seeing is, we're seeing cybersecurity evolve from a fortress model to an endpoint security model.” 

“...Going over and above and being a great compliance department, I think that was all part and parcel of that idea of being not just a good compliance department, but being a great compliance department.”

Resources: 

Compliance in Context