Company: WTFCN
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001015328-25-000093
Chunk: 234

Company: WINTRUST FINANCIAL CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1C
Chunk 234
---
ITEM 1C. CYBERSECURITY

Risk Management and Strategy

Like every major financial services institution, Wintrust faces significant and persistent cybersecurity risks. Whether in the form of data theft, ransomware, phishing, denial of service, or third-party vendor incidents, threat actors continue to become more sophisticated and escalate their efforts against financial institutions. At Wintrust, the Board of Directors and executive management are committed to devoting the necessary resources into monitoring, detecting, preventing and mitigating cyber risk. As a regulated financial institution, we are required to comply with various regulations applicable to cybersecurity, as well as guidance issued by our regulators, and our cybersecurity program closely tracks to those requirements. Additionally, Wintrust leverages global cybersecurity standards as general guides, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework.Cybersecurity oversight begins with the Information Technology & Information Security Committee (“IT/IS Committee”) of the Wintrust Board of Directors. The Wintrust Chief Security Officer (“CSO”) and Deputy Chief Information Security Officer (“Deputy CISO”) oversee the cybersecurity program. The CSO has a dual reporting structure, reporting to both the IT/IS Committee and the Vice Chairman/Chief Operating Officer of Wintrust. The CSO and Deputy CISO, each with extensive industry experience, manage a team of skilled professionals with cybersecurity expertise. This team governs our cybersecurity program that follows seven pillars: strategy; prevention, detection, response, measurement, compliance, and training. Our cybersecurity program employs a wide range of technological, administrative, and physical security measures designed to address the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information and data of both Wintrust and our customers. We have established policies, processes and procedures to monitor, report and respond to suspected or actual security events. A critical function of the cybersecurity program is the Security Operations Center, which is constantly monitoring Wintrust systems to detect threats. If any credible threats are detected, the Security Operations Center notifies both the CSO and Deputy CISO, and the appropriate response plan is initiated. The CSO will advise executive management and other relevant stakeholders as necessary. We coordinate with our third parties and vendor partners through assessments and due diligence before sharing or allowing the hosting of data. We also work with our outside partners to investigate security events that may have impacted our confidential and other information, and to leverage lessons learned during those investigations.  In addition, we contractually require our third-party service providers that possess or process any Wintrust or customer information to adhere to certain security requirements, controls and responsibilities based on the