Five Ways to Keep Your Workplace Safe Online

Regardless of size or business type, companies must institute these basic practices to make sure their organizations are well protected from cybercriminals.

• By Susan Alexandra
• Jul 05, 2019

Cybersecurity was not a well-known topic even a decade ago, but today it is of crucial importance. With the growing number of communication and networking demands, the need for online security is also surging. The trend of hiring a mix of off-site and virtual employees along with office-based employees is making businesses more vulnerable.

The continuous increase in security concerns makes it essential to take proper online security measures for each workplace, be it office-based, based on remote employees or a hybrid system.

Create a Sense of Responsibility

Each and every member of the business, whether they are managers or employees, must be well aware of their responsibilities. These responsibilities include maintaining the workplace decorum and ensuring the safety and privacy of the company's data. Business details and documents are not something that should be taken for granted and must be handled with care.

It is the ethical liability of the employees not to share business data or passwords with any unauthorized person either intentionally or unintentionally. Employees and staff should also stay vigilant regarding any suspicious activity in the system and inform IT staff or another administrator immediately. Creating this sense of responsibility among employees and staff is important for keeping your workplace safe.

Invest in Security Tools

Using security tools will take the security of your workplace to the next level. It is often easier to control the authorized access to the system, but controlling the security of data when it is being shared with outside parties and being sent back into the system is a challenging task.

Cybercriminals and spies often attack the data when it is traveling from one place to another and use different tools to get access to it. VPN provides an encrypted tunnel for all your online data and eliminates all the chances of outsiders snooping on the data. It uses military-grade encryption and encodes each file in a way that it becomes impossible to decode at any level. Investing in a reliable VPN for your workplace will maximize your workplace online safety.

Make it your habit to keep your system up to date with the updated version of antivirus software. It is also recommended to use an updated version of your chosen web browser and set it to auto update. You should also remove browser redirect virus from your system in the case that it has been infected.

Enhance Device Security

It is also essential to ensure foolproof security for each device connected with the system. Employees can use pin or matrix passcode to make their phones and tablets as secure as possible. Fingerprint scans or difficult-to-decode passwords should also be encouraged.

Restrict all of your employees, whether they are office-based or remote, to use only secure devices to connect with the system and avoid using any personal device for this purpose. The security risk increases to a greater extent when employees and staff use their smartphones and other personal devices to access company data as most of these devices are not well guarded and are sometimes accessed by multiple users.

Restrict Unauthorized Entry to the System

For ensuring the complete safety and security of your workplace, it is essential to keep a strict eye on each person who is accessing the company's data. Assign a separate identity for all staff and employees along with a unique password for connecting with the system. This way, you can restrict who can access the data and to what extent. For more sensitive and high-risk data, it is advised to use multiple stage authentication to make sure it is only accessed by authorized personnel. You can combine a password with fingerprint authentication or use a pin code and face recognition for added layers of security.

Arrange Training Sessions

Educating staff members about cybersecurity issues and ways of dealing with threats is essential for your workplace security. For this purpose, it is recommended to arrange regular training sessions regarding the issue. This will help new members to learn the latest techniques and also refresh the information for older employees.

The training sessions should be focused on the security measures that each member must practice while connecting with the system. It must also educate them about the tricks and techniques used by cybercriminals and how to make them less effective. Training and awareness are necessary for both on-site and remote employees.

These are the basic steps for enhancing workplace security that must be practiced by each organization regardless of its size and business type. Business data is sacred and it must be well-guarded.