Betina and the Importance of Awareness
written by: Lorenzo Almanza
Betina Castellvi is the Officer, EVP & Chief Security Officer of Banco Popular.
With many companies transitioning to online work, companies understand the risk that comes with it, including online hacking. Banco Popular has relied on Chief Security Officer and Executive Vice President, Betina Castellvi.
Her understanding and knowledge of awareness and cybersecurity has allowed the company to move in the right direction. “A lot of this has been awareness, empowerment and fixing what needs to be fixed so we can catch it quickly,” Castellvi said.
“In the United States and in the world, we don’t have that sharing fully deployed, so they go faster, and we don’t learn about the tactics as fast, so I think that’s a big challenge.”
Castellvi believes the company has the right resources and man power to combat any future attacks. It is her belief that the company is moving in the right direction. “I think that with remote work, we’ve expanded the challenge significantly, but what I tell everybody is relevant is that this is not a matter of the team protecting the corporation, it’s a matter of everybody,” she explains.
“I think we’ve invested a lot of time trying to empower everybody to understand what it means to be careful, to be protective because it only takes one person to click on the wrong email to do the wrong thing to the system” The CSO currently holds a Jurius Doctor Degree from the University of Puerto Rico and is also admitted to the bar. “Having a law degree was really a compliment, I never worked as a lawyer really, I just saw it as an opportunity to learn and I applied it in every job that I had,” she said.
It is because of her background that she focuses a lot of her time on education.
“We need to have stronger education methods, we need to know who you are, not only by what you are telling me but I want to know what source you’re using, where you’re connecting from.”