By Jeff Reiter, CEO, RWK IT Services
January is when leaders finally face the stuff they’ve been avoiding:
- Annual physicals
- Dental cleanings
- That weird engine noise
- And maybe, just maybe, their tech infrastructure
Preventive care never feels urgent. But it always costs less than crisis care.
And here’s the question every financial institution should be asking right now:
When was the last time your IT had a real exam?
Not a quick fix. Not a patch. A full diagnostic, the kind that finds problems before the regulators or ransomware do.
Because in tech, just like in healthcare, there’s a big difference between “no symptoms” and actually being healthy.
Most IT Failures in Finance Are Preventable
You can feel fine with dangerously high blood pressure. You can chew without knowing a tooth is rotting from the inside.
IT is the same way.
When financial firms go down hard, it’s almost always due to:
- Backups that didn’t actually restore
- Infrastructure beyond support
- Abandoned accounts with full system access
- Outdated firewalls
- Missing documentation for audits
- No clear policies around new tech (AI, anyone?)
- “Plans” that exist only in theory, not practice
The risk isn’t loud. It’s lurking, quietly, behind a system that seems fine.
What a Real IT Physical Looks Like (Financial Edition)
Vital Signs: Backup & Recovery
Your heartbeat. If it fails, you flatline.
- Are backups completing, and test-restoring?
- When’s the last time you ran a real-world recovery drill?
- If your server dies at 9:00 AM, how fast can you bounce back?
Most firms only find out backups are broken during the crisis.
That’s like finding out your AED doesn’t work during cardiac arrest.
Heart Health: Infrastructure & Devices
Your arteries. If they’re clogged or brittle, your systems are at risk.
- How old are your servers, firewalls, endpoints?
- Is anything past vendor support (no patches, no help)?
- Are you upgrading strategically, or just reacting to failures?
Outdated infrastructure is like silent plaque buildup, you don’t notice it until it brings everything to a halt.
Bloodwork: Access & Identity Hygiene
The stuff no one sees, until it becomes a problem.
- Can you list everyone with access to your systems, right now?
- Are ex-employees or former vendors still active in your environment?
- Are there shared credentials with zero traceability?
Access creep is like elevated cholesterol. You don’t feel it...until it takes you down.
Cancer Screening: Incident Response Planning
You hope you’ll never need it. But you’ll wish you had it when the day comes.
- Do you have an Incident Response Plan (IRP)?
- Is it written down, assigned, tested, and time-boxed?
- Do you know who leads the response, and how fast you notify clients and regulators?
If the plan lives in someone’s head or a forgotten PDF, you don’t have a plan.
You have exposure.
In the financial industry, the speed of response is the difference between containment and catastrophe.
AI Acceptable Use Policy: The New Blood Panel
AI tools are everywhere, from client chat to internal operations.
But without a clear policy, AI becomes a risk vector.
- Do you have written guidelines on AI use (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot, internal bots)?
- Are staff trained on what data is never to be shared with third-party tools?
- Is AI use monitored and tied into your broader cybersecurity policies?
Unchecked AI use is like skipping a new set of blood panels.
It introduces risk you don’t yet know how to see, or treat.
Compliance Health: Regulator-Ready or Playing Catch-Up?
- Are you audit-ready for FFIEC, FINRA, SEC, OCC, or PCI?
- Can you produce evidence of controls, backups, identity management, and breach reporting timelines?
- Are you ready for AI regulations and data privacy updates (think Illinois Biometric laws or GDPR extensions)?
Your compliance profile is like your full-body scan. If you wait until something hurts… it’s probably too late.
Symptoms You’re Overdue for an IT Physical
- “I think our backups work...”
- “We’ve got an incident plan, I just don’t know where it is.”
- “Our firewall’s old but still hanging on.”
- “People use AI tools, but we don’t have rules yet.”
- “We’ve never had a breach, we must be secure.”
- “If our IT lead quits, we’d be in real trouble.”
If any of this sounds familiar: you’re not paranoid. You’re overdue.
The Cost of Skipping the Exam
A checkup costs hours. A crisis costs your firm everything.
Let’s talk real numbers:
- Data loss = Millions in unrecoverable trust and legal exposure
- Downtime = Missed trades, SLA violations, reputational damage
- Compliance fines = $50K–$250K per incident (and they add up fast)
- AI misuse = Exposure of PII, client contracts, or proprietary data
- Ransomware = Recovery costs now average $250K–$500K for mid-sized firms
Prevention is quiet and cheap.
Response is loud and expensive.
Why You Can’t Diagnose Yourself
You wouldn’t do your own colonoscopy. You shouldn’t audit your own systems either.
A proper tech checkup requires an outside expert who:
- Knows what “healthy” looks like in finance
- Can benchmark you against audit standards
- Spots what your internal team has normalized
- Helps you test your incident response in a safe environment
- Creates enforceable, real-world AI policies, not just legal disclaimers
Book Your IT Health Check Today
You’re already making doctor appointments this month. Do the same for your business-critical tech.
We’ll run a full diagnostic across your environment:
- What’s working
- What’s at risk
- What needs action before your next audit, outage, or breach
Includes AI policy recommendations and incident response playbook alignment.
👉 Schedule your 15-minute discovery call here
No jargon. No scare tactics. Just clarity, and a concrete next step.
Because in finance, you don’t get second chances at trust. And you definitely don’t get to “wing it” in a crisis.
