7 Ways to Improve Digital Security for Business

Finding yourself in an unprecedented situation of digital theft? Do you see your business ideas or product designs hitting the shelves before your company could? If the falling profits aren’t an appalling sign, then what is? If you run a small company that sells original ideas and products online, it’s pertinent you have a decent but foolproof digital security protocol.

Improve Digital Security for Business

But what does it all mean and how much will it cost? Well, it’s a lot easier and cost-friendlier nowadays. While devising a digital security plan, it’s important to understand the different kinds of digital threats. Most of the time, it’s your competitors or hackers spying and breaching your digital security; other times, it’s your disgruntled employees — either the ones switching jobs to your competition or getting fired.

Here are 7 ways to ace the digital security of your small business:

Part a) Dealing with external digital threats:

1. Using a password manager

If your employees are not careful with their passwords, that’s the first point of vulnerability in your firm’s digital security. Employees’ computers all sorts of confidential information, and if they are not prioritizing the security of their computers, then you have to, by introducing password managers. There are many tools like Sticky Password or LastPass that provide unique and secure passwords for every site. These apps periodically change and automatically store all your passwords.

2. Use two-factor authentication

Connecting phone numbers to your emails or verifying logins through a secondary device adds a layer of security. This practice is widely effective for workplace security, too.

3. Delete old or unused accounts

There always will be new employees taking places for the old ones. And whenever that happens, it’s time to retire any old email accounts or block access to confidential sheets or social accounts. Deactivate your former employees’ official email accounts while change passwords to any of your official company accounts. This is as important as it gets. Whether your company’s ex-employees move on happily or disgruntled, you can’t take any chances.

4. VPNs and firewalls

Many times, it’s not your competitors prying on you; it’s those random hackers and extorters whose sole motive is to attack your valuable data. Using VPNs and firewalls can minimize these threats quite effectively.

5. Data backups

Data breaches and ransomware or even a natural disaster could damage your data. Having cloud backups could come in handy for any unprecedented data loss. 

For internal cyber threats:

6. Segmentation

A significant amount of cyber threats emanate internally, and it’s a wise decision to segment and limit employee access to the system. With this, you can limit the damage to a few hostile users.

7. Use employee tracking apps for PC and cell phones

How your employees behave behind those screens has been a mystery for too long now. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Managers should have a complete know-how of what their teams are doing on the company PCs and phones. And while many managers are already opting for time-tracking software programs like TimeDoctor, they still don’t have phone monitoring built into their company’s digital security infrastructure.

Having phone monitoring at your firm comes with its bits of pros and cons. However, with every business decision, it’s important to weigh the costs and benefits. Let’s have a look at those.

Benefits:

• It gets easy finding a mole at work. With all-around and foolproof surveillance in place, it’s easier to find who’s been selling you off behind your backs. For a startup or small business, there’s not enough infrastructure or funds to have IT audits. The best employee monitoring apps like the Xnspy employee tracking app offers extensive phone surveillance with daily cell phone usage reports of employees.
• Affordable. Xnspy only costs $4.99 per device which doesn’t accumulate to a hefty amount if you have a small team to manage. Compared to the employee theft that takes place every year, it’s just peanuts.
• Location tracking for distributed teams. The pandemic changed how offices are run. The teams are now distributed more than ever and that makes employee management even more challenging. With Xnspy’s location tracking, managers can see where their employees are during office hours and can even geofence competitors’ offices.
• Daily cell phone usage reports. PC time trackers show you only half the picture. Cell phone use has been integral to an employees’ daily office routine, and not knowing what they do all day on their phones or how they spend their time with their phones is worth every bit of your concern. However, if you have Xnspy in place, seeing what they do on their phones gets extensively easy. The app monitors every tiny detail from employees’ phones and uploads it to the cloud so you can access it anytime. You can see which apps they use and for how long, including whom they email, or the sites they browse, or the conversations they have on social networks. 

Costs:

• Subscription fee. Additional desktop and mobile surveillance on top of CCTV are meant to incur additional expenses. However, with the right choice of apps, this extra expense can be cut by more than half. With an employee tracking app like Xnspy, you pay somewhere around USD 5 per subscription. But with other apps, it could go as much as USD 15 per employee.

Testy workplace environment. Giving the impression that you don’t trust your employees creates a distasteful workplace environment. However, this is easily avoidable. Revising your work surveillance policies after discussing with your employees and opening up to them about your workplace theft concerns can make the transition smoother.