AIMA publishes Guide to Sound Practices for Cyber Security

London – 6 October 2015: The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the global industry body representing alternative asset managers, has published new cyber security guidance for hedge fund firms and other asset managers.

The AIMA Guide to Sound Practices for Cyber Security sets out a number of steps that hedge fund firms and other asset managers should take in building up their cyber security defences.

The Guide discusses the nature and scope of existing and emerging threats and offers practical guidance on effective methods for preventing or dealing with them.

The Guide focuses on matters such as governance, employee related considerations, the technology that can be used for data protection, threat prevention and threat detection and how these technologies can be developed in-house or using cloud services.

It also sets out how cyber security programmes fit within the developing regulatory environment being applied to cyber security matters.

To help smaller fund managers, and managers seeking to assess the effectiveness of their existing cyber security programmes, the Guide also indicates the level of difficulty that a firm might have in implementing certain types of threat preventions and threat detection techniques as part of a cyber security programme.

AIMA CEO Jack Inglis said: “Technological advances have brought great efficiencies to investment managers, but not without introducing new and unexpected risks. Cyber security is one of the biggest challenges facing all kinds of businesses today, and yet until now there has been very little guidance tailored to asset management firms in general, and hedge fund firms and other alternative asset managers in particular. This has raised questions both about fund managers’ understanding of the various cyber security-related issues and how their businesses could be impacted as well as their overall level of preparedness.

“What is obvious is that vigilance and preparedness is key. With this Guide to Sound Practices, we hope that our members will be better equipped to understand and deal with these new and emerging challenges and threats.”

The Guide was created by a working group of AIMA’s Sound Practices Committee, a body of AIMA member firms that advises the association on industry sound practices across a range of disciplines.

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Note to Editors

The full AIMA Guide to Sound Practices for Cyber Security is available only to AIMA member firms. An executive summary is available here – http://www.aima.org/en/document-summary/index.cfm/docid/530A20D2-5704-4D5F-AF35717D2666F405

For media enquiries, please contact:

Dominic Tonner, Director, Global Head of Communications, AIMA

Tel: +44 20 7822 8380

Email: dtonner@aima.org

Laura Brooks, Associate, Communications, AIMA

Tel: +44 (0)20 7822 8380

Email: lbrooks@aima.org

About AIMA

The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) has over 1,600 corporate members (and over 10,000 individual contacts) in over 50 countries. Members include hedge fund managers, fund of hedge funds managers, prime brokers, legal and accounting firms, investors, fund administrators and independent fund directors. AIMA’s manager members collectively manage more than $1.5 trillion in assets. All AIMA members benefit from AIMA’s active influence in policy development, its leadership in industry initiatives, including education and sound practice manuals, and its excellent reputation with regulators worldwide. AIMA is a dynamic organisation that reflects its members’ interests and provides them with a vibrant global network. AIMA is committed to developing industry skills and education standards and is a co-founder of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation (CAIA) – the industry’s first and only specialised educational standard for alternative investment specialists. For further information, please visit AIMA’s website, www.aima.org.