Birmingham, Ala. – June 14, 2018 – ProEquities, Inc., an independent financial advisory and broker-dealer firm that is a subsidiary of Protective Life Corporation, today announced the launch of a comprehensive cybersecurity solutions platform to deliver an enhanced level of protections for the firm’s financial advisors. ProEquities rolled out this new unified platform in close collaboration with Entreda, a leading cybersecurity risk mitigation and compliance software firm.

The new platform features comprehensive and continuous cyber protection for the ProEquities financial advisors, including on their mobile devices, to enhance the security of their client data. Other features of the industry-leading Entreda platform include protection against phishing attacks, the delivery of personalized training to advisors based on their individual computing habits, and a comprehensive reporting suite. ProEquities is rolling out the new Entreda platform to all of its financial advisors at no added cost.

Chris Flint, President and CEO of ProEquities, said, “Financial advice firms and their advisors are operating in an era of escalating cybersecurity risk and are increasingly targeted by hackers who are both sophisticated and focused. Unfortunately, much of our industry continues to rely on siloed cybersecurity systems, cobbled together across multiple service providers, that offer patchwork solutions to strategic challenges. We’re confident the launch of our comprehensive cybersecurity platform will not only enable our advisors to provide their clients with the best possible protections that exist today but will also help to set higher data integrity and protection standards across our industry.”

The new Entreda cybersecurity platform implemented by ProEquities takes an innovative approach to addressing several critical areas:

  • Systems and software safeguards. The platform requires and ensures that effective and current versions of critical safeguards are in place, including anti-virus and anti-malware protection, firewalls and operating system updates.
  • Physical device protection. Additionally, the new platform ensures that encryption, passcodes, auto-locks and screen locks are operating to provide added layers of security against physical intrusion.
  • Customized advisor training. The platform contains a training component capable of providing tailored education to advisors as well as simulated phishing attacks to heighten advisor awareness.
  • Back-end reporting. The platform also allows for home office monitoring of deficiencies in real time, with the added benefit of being able to push out immediate remediation where necessary.

While many in the industry have typically relied on separate vendors to tackle these potential trouble spots, the new platform customized for ProEquities is an integrated solution capable of managing all of them at once. The platform is designed to work across devices, including desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets and is compatible with a variety of leading software programs commonly used by advisors.

Mr. Flint concluded, “Increased protection shouldn’t come at the cost of decreased attention among advisors for their clients. In this new fiduciary era, financial advisors need to focus on client-facing activities rather than become part-time IT experts just to address the rise of cyber threats to their businesses and clients. Our new offering enables our advisors to maximize their time with client relationships as part of a turnkey platform that makes cybersecurity effective, seamless and easy.”