How Secure Are Your Comms?
No matter which system you and your staff are using to communicate there is basic groundwork to be done to ensure that the data that they are discussing and sharing is secure.
Antivirus software is no longer enough to protect sensitive information and prevent your business suffering an attack from hackers. Even if your company is small, your data is never entirely safe from being targeted: just under half of data breaches in 2019 involved small businesses.
Your organisation needs to assess the overall risk to sensitive information, run a cost/benefit analysis, and take steps to protect your data (and your reputation). Following basic protection tips will lay a strong foundation for safeguarding your confidential client information, but ensuring the highest possible security for your comms will require even more changes to your communication framework.
If your business can’t afford to take any risks, there are four essential areas for you to work on.
1. Getting Buy-in from Business Stakeholders
Achieving a secure comms network will not be possible without buy-in from all the stakeholders of your business. Every employee, executive manager, and external incident response team member needs to be on board with the plan to take cybersecurity seriously.
Make communications security a priority at all levels of your business and ensure that all staff are aware of, and actively using:
● End-to-end encryption
● Local and Cloud data encryption
● Strong, regularly altered passwords
● Multi-factor authentication
● Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
● Collaboration tools for internal comms
Cybercriminals are forever developing more creative and stealth-like techniques, so training colleagues to be security-minded will prevent sensitive information from being compromised. Your company can’t afford to be complacent when it comes to security, and it’s worth repeating that every individual needs to be on the same page.
For extra assurance, there are certain tools you can use to take away some of the risk involved with relying on staff to remember to carry out these key tasks. Password managers, for instance, can generate strong passwords and be directed to implement them when you want.
Which of these best practices has your organisation already implemented? How can you modify your cybersecurity infrastructure? Do all your stakeholders know and understand the reason why they should be upholding these procedures?
2. Developing Clear Security Policies
Get your cybersecurity team to conduct a thorough risk assessment. Study their findings as well as case studies from similar businesses, as there are many lessons you can learn from a hack.
Based on the results, define your procedures and comms policies, ensuring that they cover the following key issues:
● Critical asset management
● Incident management
● Vulnerability management
● System and network management
● Access control
● Authentication
● Privacy
● Physical security
Who will oversee violations and enforcement? Which users can access and use certain content? How will the physical devices be kept secure? How will you train your employees in these policies? Would staff members be able to spot and report data breaches and phishing attacks?
3. Using a Professional Industry-Standard Communication Platform
Emails and SMS texts should be phased out where possible. A professional, industry-standard communication tool is the key to communicating quickly without sacrificing security and running the risk of your information being intercepted.
These alternative comms platforms allow you to remotely delete messages if a device is lost or stolen, so you should choose a tool that works across devices. The platform should have a web, desktop, and mobile interface.
Have you stopped relying on texts and email for work-related purposes within your company? Have you set up a company-wide secure messaging application?
4. Establishing a Monitoring and Enforcement Team
Setting up a dedicated team to monitor how staff are adhering to the security policies you have developed will go a long way towards protecting your data.
Put a control point in place so that your team can verify that you communication policy is being complied with. If they are violated, you need to be able to respond with enforcement actions.
Can you detect failed access and hacked passwords? Can you stop unauthorised usage? How will ensure high SLA compliance and track service availability?
To summarise, properly securing your communication framework will require clear cybersecurity policies, buy-in from all stakeholders, professional alternative comms platforms, and a monitoring and enforcement team to check compliance and respond to incidents. Without this basic groundwork, your business will be leaving itself open to avoidable attacks and damage.
Of course, this is a monumental task that will take time, knowledge, and resources. Outsourcing the work to a specialised cybersecurity team will mean that your comms infrastructure can be designed, implemented and managed seamlessly. Crucially, partnering with expert security consultants will give your internal IT department more time to focus on other critical tasks without disrupting your day to day operations.
Why not contact us today to see how we can help?
