Growing Your Business by Modernising the Workplace
Acknowledging the Disadvantages
Data Trust and Security Management
Data leak and privacy breach are two of the things that can easily ruin a client’s trust. And losing a client’s trust is a sure-fire way to lose their business too. But a lot of companies weren’t prepared for a global health catastrophe and didn’t have a strong enough security system already in place before businesses were forced to allow employees to work remotely.
Therefore, 54% of IT professionals think that remote workers pose a great security risk . And they have all the right to think so. After all, no one would be there to oversee how employees treat company and customer data when no one is looking. On top of your employees’ integrity getting tested, IT teams also worry about the ones who take advantage of weak security systems for a living.
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Business Email Compromise
While many organizations use collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack for internal communication, email is still the primary way we communicate with external stakeholders. Cybercriminals use this knowledge to exploit vulnerabilities in your system to access your data, which leads to business email compromises or BECs.
Typically, BECs involve the social engineering of emails that fool people into giving cybercriminals access to your current systems. This is one of the simplest ways criminals gain our identity and data, making it one of the top priorities regarding data security.
Cybercriminals send emails that look identical to the real ones we receive from our partners but with bank details switched up, which leads to payments going to the criminals’ bank accounts.
On the other hand, one common problem in implementing systems that identify BEC attacks is the false positives. Therefore, companies must be careful in choosing an IT solution that can effectively determine whether an email is legitimate or fake.
Read more about BEC here: What is BEC?
Identity
The recent economic shift made it easier for businesses to allow their employees to work remotely. This has made work-life balance so much better for workers. At the same time, work-from-anywhere has also made it a lot easier for cybercriminals to steal our identities and gain access to our data.
It used to be very simple in the past. All we needed to do was secure an office or any single location using tools such as firewalls that protect the people within the building against criminals that are trying to get in.
Nowadays, the desire to work from anywhere has never been stronger, especially since the pandemic started. Because of this, more and more companies have transitioned to a hybrid or completely remote work setup, which also made securing our login details and identity more challenging.
To communicate and collaborate on the go, we opt to use various tools that may not have the best security features. Whether you’re a small or medium-sized organisation, you can still end up becoming easy targets and victims of cybercriminals.
Collaboration tools with good security features can be employed to prevent security breaches, such as Microsoft 365. In addition, you can also use suitable password managers that allow employees to store and share information safely with their teammates online.
Device
Device security has been a critical part of data protection for many years, and anyone with a laptop or computer would be familiar with antivirus software. However, the cyber threats we get are getting increasingly sophisticated and traditional antivirus software can’t detect them anymore.
This is why device encryption is a must. Devices these days require intelligence-based solutions that will effectively determine whether something is malicious or not. With this, whether your device gets lost or accessed by cybercriminals, you can rest assured your information won’t get compromised.
All this is easier said than done. IT professionals have been having a more challenging time ensuring that all devices connected to internal systems are encrypted. Effective encryptions prevent potential threats from getting past our security systems, leading to lesser workload and peace of mind.
Data
Data is king, and protecting data means protecting all your customers. Here, data storage plays a huge role in your security. Understanding and following the standard way of storing data prevents leaks that can cause financial damage to your customers and ruin your reputation.
In 2018, the Australian privacy act was amended to require organisations to send data breach notifications to ensure that all parties involved are secured. This is to help businesses know and understand the extent to which scammers can manipulate stolen data.
Many storage requirements have been imposed to strengthen data security, particularly on the Australian government or organisations linked to it. Adhering to these requirements and knowing where your data is stored are only some of the best practices you can do to ensure your data is secured.
Physical Security
Many companies have moved on to a hybrid work setup or a completely remote environment. Because of this, employees have to log in to the company’s internal network even when offsite. This has caused a great deal of discomfort regarding security as it is more challenging to track who’s accessing which system or document.
Microsoft helps us deal with these modern problems using modern solutions, such as PINs and facial and fingerprint recognition. Employing multiple security features lessens the possibility of malicious actors infiltrating your networks.
Having both online and physical security is critical in ensuring that data breaches are significantly reduced, if not avoided. This also leads to higher productivity since employees don’t have to worry about other things besides their work.
Knowledge
Employees are the most vulnerable part of our system, yet they are also the most essential aspect of preventing any security threat. To ensure that they are part of the solution, it is necessary to equip them with skills to understand and identify these threats.
Technology can only do so much to stop malicious actors from gaining access to our business and personal information. While technology definitely is getting better, it also costs thousands of dollars to always have the latest security feature. The key is still having trained, enabled and empowered team members that can step in where technology can no longer reach.
The Future of the New Normal
The COVID-19 pandemic has been around for more than a year now, and no one can tell when it will be over, or if it will be over. The global economy took a major blow when businesses of all sizes had to close and stop operations because of the pandemic. And for our businesses to survive this global set back, we can’t keep doing the things we only know and feel comfortable in. We need to get out of our comfort zone, learn, adapt, and modernise our workplaces so we can empower our modern workers and continuously grow our business.