It’s important to note that improving business security is always important. You sit on value, and that value must be protected. Of course, business security is also important when considering the value of your employees and their dignity. Securing your parking area is just as important as locking your doors.
That being said, improving business security in uncertain times is a great idea, as remote work in the midst of a worrying pandemic has freed up our offices, and our time, to look at the most fundamental values of our brand. Security can be a great place to start.
So, how do you get started? How can we, more appropriately, learn to protect and encrypt everything we do? And in 2020, isn’t online security much more important than physical? Well, the answers aren’t as simple as you might expect, and it’s important to take into account each individual situation before coming to those answers. It’s that we hope to provide in the words below, as we work with you to try and find the most worthwhile answers:
Educate Your Staff
Educating your staff as to the best security practice to follow is essential. After all, human error is usually the most common source of security vulnerabilities. It’s not the proverbial door that is weak enough to breakthrough, it’s the caretaker who forgets to lock it. This is especially true in these times of remote working, where your employees may decide to head out to a local coffee shop to support local businesses while working, or they may accidentally leave such devices on a train.
Regular changing of their passwords, learning how to log into a VPN securely and with randomized access, keeping 2 factor authentication as standard, and removing apps that are not work-permitted on a particular device can be worthwhile. For instance, many firms are now asking their staff to remove apps such as TikTok from their mobile devices, thanks to growing evidence of the security vulnerabilities within.
You cannot expect your staff to follow best practice if you fail to update them as to its best use, nor if you fail to regularly update how best practice should be applied. After all, things change, and it’s the job of those responsible for security in your firm to keep up with that.
Consider Office Vulnerabilities
What office vulnerabilities could you improve, now you have the time to inspect them? Might it be that your window fittings are quite old, and perhaps not as secure as they could be? Maybe you wish to secure your most important storerooms with better access control locks, that can be depended on no matter what?
Now could be a great time to upgrade your closed-circuit television system, allowing you to see all aspects of your premises in real-time. However, it’s not always about the vulnerabilities in the office you might worry about from a physical sense. Sometimes, you may find that other issues present themselves. For instance, the desire to improve business security could be satiated in policy adjustment.
If you find that you use plenty of temp workers, or continually switch out your low-skilled labor, are you properly verifying their right to work in your country? Avoiding the proper inspections could lead you closer to encountering punitive fines or worse. When you’re more able to care for your hiring practices, you can prevent difficult situations from occurring. This leads us to:
Vetting Employees
It’s a very unfortunate thing that more and more people are losing their jobs in the time of Covid-19. This means that work is coming at an all-time premium, and people will do anything to secure it to provide for their families. This means that people may find themselves applying for jobs with exaggerated resumes, or suggest they have skills that have not been used for decades, or may fabricate references. This is why it’s important to verify the identities and material you are presented with as a hiring employee. This allows you to weed out those who are hoping to bluff their way through.
A multi-stage interview where you contact references, test their knowledge, and verify who they are is a good idea. It helps you ensure that you fully know and recognize the people you’re hiring. It also gives you the confidence to truly invest in the best people, something that businesses truly need to focus on right now if they are to survive.
Social Media Protections
Too many brands have had their social media accounts hijacked, and you can see just how damaging this may be to the public perception of a brand. It’s best to avoid making apologies by preventing this situation from taking place in the first place. A novel concept, surely.
However, it’s important to liase with your social media manager on this. Verify and always know who has access to your accounts. ONLY allow them to be operated through verified devices. Use measures such as the social media 2 factor authentication allowances (not sent to SMS, but rather an app or as part of your brand managed dashboard).
This gives you the opportunity to protect your online presence, and your communication with your audience. This process should be followed no matter what social media channel you use.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is very important to get right. It must always adapt to the latest and greatest threats that may come our way. With a worthwhile managed IT service, you will be more able to approximate this. Furthermore, keeping up to date with the latest phishing attacks and what they may mean for your business, or reporting intrusions, and ensuring you curate digital accountability to find out how certain staff systems were compromised will educate you going forward.
Even companies that hold little in the way of skilled IT staff can benefit from using services and processes like this. In 2020, the online component of security is essential.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily improve your business security, and even in uncertain times.