Is Your Company’s Data Secure?

By Matt Brennan

Is your company’s data secure? It’s an important question that businesses and organizations should spend some time with, especially as the way we do work evolves.

Your business may have hit its stride with remote work during the pandemic in 2020. Whether you’ve been pleasantly surprised by the necessary adjustments, or you were thrown off guard by sudden changes, you may want to check what type of security vulnerabilities you’ve been left with in the aftermath of the adjustments you were forced to make.

Some of your employees’ behaviors as they work from home may unintentionally leave your company’s most vital data in jeopardy. Below are some of the work-from-home technology scenarios that can lead to increased data vulnerabilities.

Remote Work Data Vulnerabilities

Reduced Security on Personal Devices

If your remote work program was made possible by allowing employees to use their personal devices, it can present added security headaches for your IT team. Personal devices and public Wi-Fi systems can expose organizational data to several additional risks and make it easier for a hacker to gain access.

Strict password regulations and educating your employees about proper safety measures while working from their own devices, can help them to understand the risks involved proceed with the right cautions in place.

An Old Threat Renewed with Phishing

Hackers baiting unsuspecting email users into traps is really nothing new. What is new is the level of sophistication and ill-intent in the wake of the pandemic. Some may masquerade as medical supply sellers. Others may try to pull on your heart strings, with fake charitable causes. When your employees click on the email links, they may be downloading malware that lets outsiders access all of your data.

Educating employees about the threat of these phishing scams is a solid first step in making sure your company’s data is secure. Make sure they understand that if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. They can always Google the company, organization, or even email address that the email originated from in an attempt to find out whether or not it is legit.

Software and Wi-Fi Vulnerabilities

If Microsoft 365 is somewhat new to your remote workforce, they may not be used to what the login screen looks like. Fake login screens allow hackers to steal login credentials and access any document created within Office 365. They can then impersonate users and login from their own system.

Insecure Wi-Fi also leaves vulnerabilities. This can allow users into the system who can insert malware or simply look for sensitive data that they can steal. These vulnerabilities may exist within other commonly used software programs as well.

Insider Threats

It’s hard to let yourself believe that someone your company hired may desire to cause harm within your organization. But there may be outside forces influencing their behavior. The devastating financial impact of the pandemic, inability to pay the mortgage, or out of control medical bills can cause people to behave in unrecognizable ways.

Employees may be able to download sensitive data to a personal computer device, giving them the ability to act outside of your monitoring.

Make Sure Your Company’s Data is Secure

It’s critical to do everything possible to answer the question: “Is your company’s data secure?” If you find that security has been breached, it’s important to take action fast. If you’ve lost sensitive data due to a security event, a professional data recovery company can help you to regain access to lost data. Contact us today!