Preventing fraud and taking charge of risk management is mission critical for credit unions, but luckily, they don't have to go it alone.

Currently, federal regulators are attempting to clamp down on the fraud prevention holes in financial institution infrastructures. On March 30, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council released statements about ways financial institutions can identify and mitigate cyberattacks that compromise user credentials or use destructive software. In addition, the FFIEC provided information on what institutions can do to prepare for and respond to these threats.

In December, the FFIEC released updated guidance on Bank Secrecy Act compliance and money-laundering risks. Then, on Feb. 6, the council added a 16-page appendix to its Business Continuity Planning Booklet, "Strengthening the Resilience of Outsourced Technology Services," which mentions key cybersecurity risks such as distributed denial-of-service attacks, and notes the necessity for greater due diligence of third parties and infrastructural interdependencies.