SUSTAINING OUR BUSINESS

Protecting Customer Information

In today’s ever-changing, increasingly digital world, protecting customer information is of utmost importance. As complex as today’s technology is, hackers, cyber criminals and threat actors are equally savvy. This makes monitoring systems a 24/7, 365-day-a-year task.

“Our goals are to continue the business, keep everyone functional, allow customers to conduct business with us, all while keeping data security top of mind and making sure we have the right safeguards in place,” said Deanna Pellegrino, Farm Credit East’s Information Security Manager.

“Organizationally, we’ve taken our strategy to a whole new level over the last few years,” said Daryn Deveau, Senior Vice President of Security, Data, IT Infrastructure.

“We adhere to the standards of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and constantly grade ourselves against this leading industry standard to ensure we’re moving our program in the right direction.”

Managing Risk

Risk has to be managed 24/7, and organizations must constantly evaluate, mitigate and adjust accordingly. Farm Credit East’s risk appetite statement defines the organizationally accepted risk appetite for cyber risk programs. This statement is communicated and approved all the way to the Farm Credit East Board of Directors to ensure all decisions are aligned throughout the entire organization.

Employee Training

Farm Credit East’s robust employee training program is the cornerstone of its security program. In addition to regular security trainings, Farm Credit East enacts an ongoing email phishing training. This process targets employees based on their job role and grades their success rate in identifying phishing attempts. The trainings have helped Farm Credit East staff further develop a security mindset.

Modern Tools

Farm Credit East employs best-in-class tools and is constantly assessing those tools as it relates to the current threat landscape. An example is Farm Credit Connect, Farm Credit East’s new customer portal. The portal aims to further protect customer information by not sending it over email, where information can be easily compromised, and instead keeping it within Farm Credit East’s secure platforms.

As Farm Credit East plans for the future, it aims to innovate with these same goals in mind — provide our employees and customers with the tools they need to interact and conduct business in the safest way possible.

Our Commitment To A Sustainable Future

Building on guidance provided by the board of directors in August 2022, Farm Credit East will continue assessing the Association’s environmental footprint. Utilizing a preliminary assessment of our internal environmental footprint completed by an outside consultant in 2022 using 2021 data, our environmental focus will be on reducing energy use in offices. Energy use in our buildings, including heating fuel and electricity, represented a significant portion of our overall footprint.

“Farm Credit East has made several energy efficient upgrades to our facilities in recent years, including lighting, heating and cooling systems, and windows,” said Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Grant. “As we complete future building renovations, our plan, as it makes sense environmentally and financially, is to take advantage of available resources to incorporate a full building audit in order to maximize these benefits and support our sustainability efforts.”

Farm Credit East is developing a process to ensure that all building construction or renovations are completed with environmental improvements. We are fortunate that all the states in our loan service area have programs to assist businesses in assessing buildings for energy efficiency improvements. Prior to embarking on any new building projects, we will engage these services to ensure building enhancements are completed with an eye toward sustainability.