October is almost here, and while we think the spookiest things are monsters and witches during this time of the year, it’s cyber ghosts! The month of October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and that means learning how to keep cyber ghosts away.

Tim Black, director of information technology at Valliance Bank in McKinney, knows a thing or two about building cybersecurity awareness. Black begins, “I always had a knack for tech; it was always kind of a hobby as well as a side hustle when I was in school.”

Black got into technology in banking when he heard about a new bank coming to town, and the opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time as he was ready to switch career fields and leave the automotive industry behind. Starting as a teller at Valliance Bank 14 years ago, he moved up to operations and technical support for customers, shifting his way to technical support for employees, ultimately leading him to the bank’s IT department. He has been directing the bank’s IT department since 2017.

“I found tech on the banking side extremely interesting. I didn’t quite understand it when I jumped in. With all the regulatory components we face and deal with now, it was always a challenge, and everyday it’s still a challenge.” He continues, “There’s always something evolving, especially on the scam and fraud side.”

Cyber awareness and banking threats

To help combat banking threats, Black built out a robust program to train employees on proper cyber hygiene in not only their professional banking lives but their personal lives as well. The bank’s team stays up to date on the cyber front through education modules and newsletters. As for customers, the bank shares blog posts with cyber scams to look out for, specifically during tax season, Christmas time and Amazon Prime Day.

Black makes sure his bank is constantly evolving in today’s rapidly changing tech world by staying involved with other tech groups like TBA’s very own Texas Bankers ISAO. This group, created and managed by Texas community bankers, assembles resources to protect banks and customers from cybersecurity crimes. Black is one of the group’s founding members and assembles these cyber resources for the banking community.

Common cybersecurity issues and banking threats in the industry are phishing attacks, identity theft, check fraud and one of the most evolving cyber threats according to Black, social engineering. Social engineering attacks use psychological manipulation to get people to share sensitive or private information, download harmful things or send money to criminals. With technology continuously evolving, cybersecurity attackers are evolving as well.

“The fraudsters are spinning up very believable websites, and they’re starting to use tools like ChatGPT to write their phishing emails for them, so they’re not filled with grammatical errors or red flags that we train people to look out for,” Black warned. “Social engineering has always been a big deal, but it’s starting to become more sophisticated.”

With ChatGPT, the popular language processing tool created through artificial intelligence, on the rise, Black encourages people to be careful with what they put into the chatbot or what they ask of ChatGPT.

Black says a good rule of thumb to go by is if you wouldn’t share it with a stranger, don’t share it with ChatGPT. For an additional layer of security, also disable the Chat History & Training within the program. “Anything you feed it, it’s going to learn from and remember. The minute you type in a prompt and hit enter, it’s intellectual property.”

Life outside of the cyberworld

When Black finds a little spare time outside of the cyber world, you can find him enjoying the outdoors where he spends time keeping up with his lawn. He and his wife, Emily, are also very involved with their local church, where they both lead youth groups. Black joyously shares he has a group of young men that he has led since they were in sixth grade and who are now approaching their senior year of high school.

Black and his wife are proud parents of two golden doodles, Hazel and Ralph, and are soon-to-be parents to a baby girl in early 2024.