Employees are an integral part of any organization. They have a key role to play in the success of any organization as they contribute effectively towards the accomplishment of goals. They truly are an asset, and employers should value their employees and put their trust in them in order to ensure the successful functioning of the company.
However, unfortunately, sometimes trusting employees immensely can be detrimental to the organization itself. This is much likely to happen in larger organizations, with a large pool of team members. This greatly increases the chances of an employee to breach or leak the data outside the company’s premises.
The employee may do so as vengeance or dissatisfaction from the company or employer. Their personal issues lead them to retaliate against the company, instigating them to use their power against the company and cause potential harm.
It is imperative for organizations to ensure the privacy and security of the businesses and customers, and their information. For this to be done, it is vital to invest in security resources. But, at the same time, it is also true that these organizations, be it small businesses, big corporations or public institutions, often become the target of hacks and leaks. In many incidents of a data breach, a malicious insider is responsible for maltreating the information they had access to.
In today’s day and age, protection of private information is vital for the wellbeing of a business to avoid becoming prey to any data breaches or malware infecting the system, since viruses like ransomware require huge amounts of money to be paid.
Let’s explore a list of ways that you can implement to secure your data from the entire staff:
Firstly, limit the level of access to data only to the employees and company stakeholders who need it for the operations of the company. Regrettably, you cannot trust all your employees, regardless of their position in the company. Many workers have access to much more information than required, and sometimes, they might intentionally or unintentionally end up leaking data – may be as simple as login details. But, to the employer this is a huge deal since an outsider now has confidential information about the company, thereby increasing the chances of probable hacks and malware to infect the system.
The staff should be made aware of the possible ways a malware might try to infect the system, or a hacker might try to encrypt the data. They should be warned about spam emails and infected website links that may cause viruses such as ransomware to enter the system and invade it. Ransomware removal itself is an excruciating task. You also need to give strict measures to your staff on sharing sensitive information outside the premises as companies do realize the potential threats these data breaches are capable of causing.
Another way to protect your data from breaches is by encrypting it, with access only in the owner’s hands. This way, you can open it whenever you want, and it significantly reduces the chances of a hacker accessing it if they’re able to get in the system.
Backup! The most crucial key to securing data on any software is to create a backup. It is extremely imperative to make regular backups of all your data. You wouldn’t want to lose all your data to hackers, so backup your databases to keep your information secured. It is best to do so on an external, physical drive, making multiple iterations that can also be uploaded on another system. However, uploading secure and confidential data on an online, cloud-based drive is not the most efficient approach since digital storage is more vulnerable to hacking.
Installing tracking software to workplace computers is essential to ensure the safety of the data. This provides warrants of any forbidden actions that an employee may take to compromise the privacy or break the security policy. Once the system is encrypted with such viruses or malware, ransomware removal requires a lot of effort. This security measure not just prevents mistakes from happening but also enables the employer to identify the culprit in such a case.
Being a professional organization, it is imperative that employers keep their employees connected together and provide them with fringe benefits in order to keep them satisfied and stop them from developing feelings of revenge.
However, at the same time, it is crucial to maintain a certain degree of the company’s privacy from the employees so that the data remains secured and the threat of any breach is minimized.