Solving the problems posed by 2020

As explained previously, 2020 has been a year most will want to forget, for most it has been a year of hardship both physically and mentally. Along with the physical and mental aspects to health, there is the ever-growing fear business owners have had to carry around with them for over a year now. This has only been exasperated by constantly changing rules and legislation around the way in which we go about our daily lives. Some businesses could not tackle these changes and be forced to close their doors for good and stop trading.

We will now take a look at the two goals from the previous blog in the series and how to go about achieving them, in the process assuring your business does not follow the same fate as so many unfortunate others.

Let us remind ourselves what those challenges/goals are:

1. Lower risk – increase levels of security and comply
2. Increase profit and productivity

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Finding a solution to both of these goals sounds difficult, but it does not have to be.

Let us take a brief look at what you can do to assure you rise to the challenge and achieve your goals.

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1. Lower risk – increase levels of security and comply

To make achieving your goals easier, try splitting them into different four different subheadings:

• A cultural change
• Infrastructure
• Technical controls
• Data

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A cultural change

• Procedural and cultural change is essential within your business. Make security a priority in the eyes of every employee you have – the only way to achieve this is by providing a good standard of training and support for your staff (users). Train them on the need for passwords and also the dangers posed by Shadow IT and unprotected applications.

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Infrastructure

• Be sure you have provided a good standard of infrastructure for your IT. You must be sure to check; the age, lifespan, and the level of support needed for current systems and any legacy applications. Be certain you own all end-user devices, having control of what your employees’ access and what device they access it on is important to be sure you are being secure.

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Technical controls

• When working on a mobile device, encrypting that device is a good idea. It is easy to misplace your mobile device and just as easy for someone else to access the data on it. The idea of mobile encryption is to protect your data from falling into the wrong hands should someone get a hold of your mobile – full disk encryption (FDE) encrypts all the data on it.
• Another is the use of Firewalls. A Firewall acts as a gatekeeper to your system and a filter between your computer and the internet, only allowing through what is safe and blocking access to unfriendly/ unfamiliar data and entities. Firewalls can protect your system well whilst still letting you go about your normal daily functions.
• Implementing the best cybersecurity practice is essential. You can start to do this by using two-factor or multi-factor authentication (depending on your required level of security). Requiring two distinct forms of identification in order to gain access is a great starting point to protect your system.
• Anti-malware is another important step to ensuring your business is protected from cyber-attack. It is a software program with the sole purpose to prevent, detect, and remove malicious software on IT systems. Malware comes in a variety of different forms including viruses, rootkits, spyware, and ransomware; all of which have the ability to stop your business functioning if you do not have Anti-Malware installed on your system.
• Eradicate the use of Shadow IT; you have no control over it, you cannot control the backup and recovery of data or control who is accessing the resource either. There may be employees with lower access privileges that should not be able to see, modify, or copy certain data. Before introducing any new technology into your infrastructure, you should test said tech to see what potential impact it could have and what can remedy any inefficiencies that it could cause. When using Shadow IT, it is introduced outside of normal business practice and does not undergo these checks. Yes, it can potentially make a process faster, but have not undergone the checks it could also do irreparable damage to a vital business function, thereby causing untold problems for the entire IT infrastructure.

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Data

• Knowing as much information about your data is important, this includes knowing where it is stored as you could be breaking the law if your data is not stored in the correct place. You also need to know who has access to the data and how.

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2. Increase profit and productivity

Like we did earlier, we can split this into two subheadings.

• Integration and automation
• The right tools

Integrations and automation

• Use Microsoft 365 range of tools. The tools that Microsoft provide are unrivalled in quality and functionality, take Microsoft Teams, for example, they have 115 million daily active users worldwide. The entire platform Microsoft has created is integrated and has many opportunities for automation, it puts everything in the same place saving time and boosting productivity.

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The right tools

• Shadow IT is the wrong tool! It can cause problems with productivity and security. Yes, there are times that it is better than the alternative which is why employees are choosing to use it. An issue undoubtedly will arise, and that is where the problems can begin, employees will download apps to improve the device which may not be backed up and could pose a number of risks to your organisation. The Shadow IT may be familiar to the end-user but that does not necessarily mean that it is better, it may lack productivity.
• Staff training is of utmost importance. Ensuring your staff are relatively familiar with the hardware and software they are using can only be beneficial for your business, for security purposes and to improve productivity levels. If they have a good knowledge of the tools they are using everyday then they can find ways to be the most productive with them.

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Need help with your remote work set up? Need help knowing where to spend your money? Just need some advice? Look no further!