“Stop pretending you can prevent every attack. You will be attacked.” – David Ralstin
Thank you for tuning in to The CUInsight Network, with your host, Robbie Young, Vice President of Strategic Growth at CUInsight. In The CUInsight Network, we take a deeper dive with the thought leaders who support the credit union community. We discuss issues and challenges facing credit unions and identify best practices to learn and grow together.
My guest on today’s show is David Ralstin, VP and Chief Information Security Officer at Allied Solutions. He joins me to discuss cybersecurity threats which are moving faster than ever. Having a disaster recovery policy sitting on a shelf isn’t enough, and David discusses what credit unions can do to help ensure that they’re prepared for that moment when something goes wrong.
Throughout our conversation, we look at how organizations can validate their recovery capabilities beyond a written plan or an annual tabletop exercise, with David explaining why continuous monitoring is so important and how measuring mean time to detect can provide a better picture of an organization’s preparedness, especially as AI-enabled attacks accelerate the timeline from reconnaissance to attack from weeks to hours or even minutes. We also discuss third-party and fourth-party risk, including why operational transparency and consistent communication are so incredibly important when a vendor experiences an incident.
From there, we dig into the limitations of relying too heavily on compliance and annual SOC audits when security risks are constantly changing. One of the biggest takeaways, though, is the importance of having an incident command structure in place before a crisis happens, and David shares why organizations need clear communication channels, predetermined decision-making authority, and even an out-of-band way to communicate if their usual systems have been compromised, and yes, the idea of attackers monitoring the very channels defenders are using to respond is just as scary as it sounds!
As we wrap up the conversation, David reminds us that even setting aside an hour to think through “what if?” scenarios can make a real difference. After all, we don’t have to predict every possible attack, but we can make thoughtful decisions before we’re forced to make them in the middle of a firefight. He highlights the fact that organizations should define incident-response authority in advance so that critical decisions aren't delayed until a crisis is already taking place. It's so important to have a clear decision-making “script” or plan in place as it prevents anxiety and chaos from slowing the response. Enjoy my conversation with David Ralstin!
Find the full show notes on cuinsight.com.
Connect with David:
David Ralstin, VP and Chief Information Security Officer at Allied Solutions
alliedsolutions.net
David: LinkedIn
Allied Solutions: LinkedIn | Facebook
Show notes from this episode:
Shout-out: Microsoft Teams
Shout-out: Slack
Shout-out: Jira
In this episode:
[1:03] - David explains how disaster recovery requires continuously validating operations rather than only relying on point-in-time assessments.
[2:28] - Hear why effective detection capabilities are crucial for identifying and responding quickly to increasingly inevitable attacks.
[4:22] - AI-enabled attacks can turn weeks of reconnaissance into just hours or even minutes, making transparency all the more important.
[6:37] - David reminds us that while compliance is important, continuous validation is needed to keep pace with rapidly changing security risks.
[8:25] - Hear how incident command structures clarify communication and decision-making responsibilities before a crisis gets even worse.
[11:39] - Developing plans before incidents occur creates a more effective and defensible response when crises arise!
