26 MAY / JUNE 2020 Why Move to .BANK? Recently the Indiana Bankers Association announced our transition to Indiana.BANK. As gatekeepers to banking executives throughout the state, we believe it’s crucial that our members can immediately authenticate and trust our email communications, preventing bad actors from using our organization as a vector for phishing and BEC attacks that could lead to bank breaches, identity theft and financial fraud. We were very pleased with the ease and affordability of the .BANK transition process and with the access to best practices and guidance from fTLD, to which our members will now have increased access. The .BANK opportunity began in 2015, but concerns around the cost and complexity of the move, and the obligation to educate customers, slowed migrations. .BANK is rapidly gaining more interest as cybercrime continues to increase in the banking industry, however, and best practices are being shared, guiding banks through affordable transitions that are easy for banks and customers. fTLD Registry Services, the coalition operating the .BANK TLD, calls .BANK the “online stamp of trust.” Exclusive to only banks and other select bank-related services, the .BANK TLD can only be obtained by organizations that complete a thorough verification and authentication process, ensuring bad actors can’t obtain .BANK domains for phishing and spoofing attacks. Drew Schiff, director of engagement services, describes .BANK as a “quick visual cue” that employees, customers and vendors can look for in emails and on your website to authenticate all interactions, similar to the “blue checkmark” on Facebook and Twitter that indicates a user is verified. Cybersecurity has long been a crucial part of the banking world, as banks have been at the top of the “Most Phished Organizations” list for more than a decade. The COVID-19 outbreak has brought this back to the forefront as we’ve seen a massive increase in phishing and spoofing cyberattacks looking to capitalize on the chaos, remote workers, increased B2C emails, and our customers’ general concern over their finances. As email is the main vector of attack against banks and bank customers, added layers of security are immensely valuable, particularly when they help to address the human error authentication problem that is at the root of nearly all phishing attacks. A .BANK domain also sets the foundation for more secure email and website transactions as banks move to offer more digital services, which is also likely to pick up pace after the COVID-19 outbreak. It takes only a few hours of engineering time and between $500 and $1,000 to set up a .BANK domain. fTLD has email, blog, website banner/notice and customer FAQ templates for educating your customers, and they will be available to your team and vendors throughout the entire migration process. Perhaps most importantly, with the ability to forward your existing website and emails to your new .BANK address, the transition is completely seamless to customers. In addition to the Indiana Bankers Association, 11 IBA-member banks have already made the switch to .BANK. Nationwide, over 550 banks have made the transition. As we believe .BANK is a critical layer of security for all of our member banks, we’re thrilled to be able to offer all IBA members a 20% discount on .BANK domain registrations for a limited time. For more information regarding .BANK please contact Drew Schiff at drew@fTLD.com, 202-589-2528; or contact me, Rod Lasley, at rlasley@indiana.bank, 317-387-9380. HB Rod Lasley Executive Vice President - Operations & Member Services Indiana Bankers Association rlasley@indiana.bank @rodlasley FEATURE
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