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All words and phrases in blue in this newsletter are links to more information!
'Tis the (other) Season! The weather outside is/was frightful and cold! But the political season is heating up quickly! At least three members of the Texas Senate won't be returning, and over a dozen House members are vacating their seats. Redistricting has resulted in very few truly competitive races, as the vast majority of the districts are either solidly Republican or Democratic. So . . . the "action" is in the March primary elections. We are being inundated with candidates running for these open seats, and are doing our best to sort them out. You can help! If you have any insights into your local races, are supporting a particular candidate or can otherwise provide guidance for us in selecting candidates to support in the primaries, please let us know. Feel free to call either Mae Beth or Steve at 800/749-4228 or e-mail us at sscurlock@ibat.org Our PAC Steering Committee will be meeting in mid-January, after the filing deadline, to determine which, if any, of the candidates we'll be supporting. Thanks in advance for your help!
| LEGAL EASE QUESTION OF THE WEEK |
 Our bank does not optical image checks. Must we accept a substitute check? Our customers don't like them! To find out the answer, click on the flashing question mark. You can also check out our growing database of other Q&As!
| WELCOME NEW ASSOCIATE MEMBERS |
 IBAT is pleased to welcome the following new Associate Members to the association. For more information about any of our Associate Members, e-mail drevers@ibat.org.
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Ciara Group – offers marketing solutions through Incentive Travel Rewards
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Warner Associates – dedicated to bringing sophisticated management decision-making resources to community bankers
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World Net Capital 1, LLC – specializes in niche single-family loan products for conventional and manufactured housing
Here is this week's newsletter from The Baker Group. Although this information has been obtained from sources, which we believe to be reliable, we do not guarantee its accuracy. This is for information purposes only and is not intended as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any security.
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 SecureWorks announced that it has just shut down its Eleventh Phishing Scam in the past three months on behalf of its financial institution clients. The rate at which smaller financial institutions are being phished is increasing substantially, as are the techniques being used by phishers. In November, phishers used a combination of phishing and hacking against one of SecureWorks' banking clients. Specifically, they implemented botnets and dynamic DNS to host the phishing sites.
The fact that the phishers/hackers are using more sophisticated techniques, such as botnets and dynamic DNS, (which certainly takes more work on the part of the phisher/hacker to implement) raises the level of play considerably for smaller banks. Using these techniques, phishers can target dozens of small financial institutions at one time and
send out thousands of malicious emails simultaneously. Unfortunately, the phishers know that the smaller banks don't have the knowledge, personnel and resources in-house to bring down such a sophisticated attack.
SecureWorks advises all of its clients, no matter the size, to be constantly on the lookout for these phishing scams. If you don't have the resources in-house to deal with them, be sure to have an experienced IT security provider as a backup -- who can quickly and effectively take down the scam.
SecureWorks provides emergency phishing takedown services to clients and prospects. If you suspect your organization is being phished, you can call SecureWorks 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-888-277-9355 for immediate assistance.
 The sixth annual IBAT Winter Summit is set for January 29-31 in South Lake Tahoe. This summit is a tremendous opportunity to get to know your regulators in an informal and relaxed setting. We will be joined by the top regulators in the state, including Stan Ivie (FDIC), Randy Fenimore (OCC), Bob Hankins (Federal Reserve Bank) and Randall James (Texas Department of Banking). Additionally, we have "dialogue with the banking lawyers", Chet Fenimore (Jenkens & Gilchrist) and Sandy Brown (Bracewell & Giuliani), to discuss current issues including mergers and acquisitions, emerging legislative issues, taxes and other "hot issues." Please note: our hotel room cutoff is December 23.
 For a complete listing of upcoming events, click here. Meanwhile, please mark your calendar for some of our key events for 2006.
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February 13-14, 2006 - The Woodlands |
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Women In Banking Conference
April 27-28, 2006 - San Antonio |
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Bank Marketing Institute
April 30-May 2, 2006 - Dallas |
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Leadership Conference
June 15-17, 2006 - Galveston |
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IBAT 32nd Annual Convention
October 1-4, 2006 - San Antonio |
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Bank Operations Institute
October 8-13, 2006 - Dallas |
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