As Jan. 28 marks Data Privacy Day, CUNA, Leagues and credit unions are leading efforts to ensure consumer data is protected through uniform data privacy and security laws, as well as ensuring the availability of the latest resources to combat cyberattacks. Since 2005, it’s been estimated more than 10,000 data breaches have exposed more than 11.6 billion personal records.

CUNA has called on Congress, most recently in December, to move beyond the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and its sector-specific approach to data security and privacy.

“The widespread use of consumer data across multiple platforms and industries has made the sector-specific approach outdated at best, as American consumers would be better served with a uniform privacy and security law regulating data and privacy protections based on type of data,” said Lance Noggle, CUNA senior director of advocacy for payments and cybersecurity. “These standards should apply to every business, institution and organization that handles consumer data, and each link in that journey should be held accountable when something goes wrong.”

CUNA is a founding board member of Sheltered Harbor, a voluntary initiative to help protect financial institutions from cyberattacks. Through the initiative financial institutions back up account data each night in the Sheltered Harbor standard format, either in its own secure data vault or with a participating service provider.

The vault is separate from the rest of the institution’s infrastructure, including all backups. Institutions that compete the data vaulting requirements are awarded Sheltered Harbor certification.