Hello Corporate America! Let’s ask the question why should cybersecurity matter to small and medium size businesses? If we define cybersecurity as measures taken to protect a computer system against unauthorized access, we are given the reason it matters. It is important to deny unauthorized actors or organizations access to a company’s intellectual property or sensitive information. Company principals and/or company management are the owners of their company’s sensitive data and should act with intention to protect their data and intellectual property. Especially when the data contains the personal and/or financial information of clients and customers. These are the assets of the company as much or more so than actual cash and should be thought of and protected as such. Now, let’s look at the odds that a breach will occur.
What is the likelihood that your small or medium size business will be the target of ransomware or malware? According to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, 28% of the breaches and incidents included in the report affected small businesses. If my public-school math serves me that is a little over one small business is affected in four breaches. I think this statistic might be underestimated due to a lack of information in some of the reporting reviewed by Verizon. Therefore, more small businesses may actually have been affected than is reflected in the Verizon report.
Additionally, small businesses presumably have less resources to protect their assets with and have fewer assets they can afford to lose. It has been reported that 60% of small businesses hit with a cyber-attack or data breach go out of business within 6 months due to the cost of remediating cyber incidents and breaches. This is even more of a reason why cybersecurity matters to small businesses.
During the Covid-19 pandemic response, the foundation of business has shifted, and traditional brick-and-mortar employees were sent home to become remote workers with few resources, planning, or testing of the processes. Business continuity took primacy over insider threat vulnerabilities that were created when business/legal requirements demanded workers be sent home. Out of necessity, the remote worker’s network security, however diminished or robust, became the weak link in their employer’s network security. Consequently, employees have been given a greater responsibility for not only their productivity and connectivity but also for the security of the company’s network with little oversight and/or policy governance to guide them.
The aforementioned situation creates challenges in detecting the insider threat among remote workers. Standard insider threat detection tripwires of “see something, say something,” are no longer in play as the remote workers’ actions are no longer viewed by their coworkers. Remote workers maybe using their own devices and may not be well-versed in how to adequately secure those devices which may then be compromised by hackers. Sharing devices with family members or cohabitants may lead to additional security concerns that their actions create as well. These are just a few of the security concerns that remote working has created. It is at this point that technology can assist in not only protecting networks from ransomware and malware, but also providing network insight into the insider threat from both the user and machine activities. Technologies such as Nomerel’s Raptor provides daily and weekly reports as to internal vulnerabilities and their remediation, as well as providing patching updates which is critical to maintaining robust network security. Nomerel also has the capability of conducting deep scans of your network to detect external vulnerabilities and corrective action to address those vulnerabilities.
Statistics indicate that many employees feel that their work product is their personal property and not the property of the company that paid them a salary to create it. This mindset is often contrary to standard business practices established at the employee’s company and criminal law. So why is there such a different understanding amongst these employees and their employers? I think the first place we need to look for the answer to this question is the company’s policies
A significant amount of small to medium-size businesses have no written policies or procedures in place. Written policies and procedures provide employees and employers alike with a roadmap of how a business chooses to conduct its day-to-day operations and what is expected of their employees. Business policies also outline the acceptable, and unacceptable actions and behaviors for which employees and employers will be held responsible. Having policies that are not written down can lead to claims of misinterpretation. Sanctioning and terminating employees may be made infinitely more difficult in the absence of written policies prohibiting their behavior.
Having written policies and procedures is a really good start to protecting your company from liability and providing clear expectations to your employees regarding their actions, behaviors and consequences thereof. However, employers must train employees on the policies and procedures. If no training is provided, an employee’s ignorance of the policies is a defense to consequences. Additionally, an employer who does not enforce written policies is willfully creating a culture that is dismissive of rules, and apathetic to guidelines. When the company’s culture places little value on compliance to policies and procedure, that culture then becomes a defense to any violation of policies. “You can’t hold me responsible for violating that policy because everyone does it and doesn’t get punished.”
Written policies and procedures are important to the daily operation of the business for both the employer and the employee. Employers create a culture of compliance by emphasizing the importance of policy and procedures, and by providing training, and enforcement of them.
Working from home may be the new norm during the current global health crisis, but it’s unlikely to be a temporary arrangement. As businesses adjust to the concept of remote working, they’re beginning to see the significant benefits of having a mobile workforce, such as greater efficiency and reduced downtime. A remote IT system may not have been a necessity in the past; however, moving forward, it will be a valuable asset that will that make your business more flexible and more productive than ever before.
The Big Benefits Of A Mobile Equipt Workforce
With the help of Nomerel’s managed IT services and cloud phone systems, every employee’s home, cell phone, and computer can become a fully integrated extension of their employer’s main office. Employees can take work calls from any location, access business data at any time, and collaborate with colleagues no matter how many miles lay between them.
Once Nomerel has set your business up for remote working, you can be prepared for any eventuality that may lead to your employees being unable to reach the office. Should your work premises ever become inaccessible or, your team members become stranded at home your business can continue to operate with full functionality. Should your team members have to travel between offices or clients, they can remain contactable at any point. It’s even possible to eliminate the need for an office and have a 100% remote workforce if that’s what works for your business.
Affordability And flexibility With A Cloud PBX Phone System
Our Cloud PBX phone system is the ideal solution for businesses with a mobile workforce. Rather than using a traditional telephone exchange, cloud-hosted phone systems operate over the internet. They make it possible to access business phone systems from any internet-connected device, which means that staff doesn’t have to be in the office to make and receive business calls.
Cloud PBX is a much more affordable solution than traditional telephony systems, particularly for businesses that are rapidly expanding. New users can be added quickly, affordably, and with minimal disruption, which is ideal for companies with growing teams or those which are branching out into new territories.
With cloud-based telephony, team members can remain available for phone calls no matter where they are, whether that’s at home, at another office, or even overseas. Plus, with advanced call handling features such as interactive voice response, time-of-day handling, and call recording, your team will be just as capable of handling large volumes of calls from home as they are at the office.
Managed IT For Comprehensive Remote Working Support
One of the biggest worries for businesses that are considering remote working capabilities is IT support. What happens if something goes wrong with the technology? Will business operations grind to a halt if a problem occurs? Our managed IT services are designed with remote working in mind since we already operate and monitor our clients’ systems off-site to minimize disruption and expense.
We monitor the vital signs of our clients’ technology systems 24 hours each day. This means we can find and fix potential problems before they occur to minimize the risk of downtime. If problems do occur, our engineers are on hand to fix them right away, and usually, this can be done remotely to avoid delays.
Another aspect to consider is data security; if employees are accessing sensitive business data from home and from an array of different devices, can it be kept secure? To put it, yes, our support solutions will ensure data remains protected as when accessed in the office. With cloud-based computing technologies, business data is securely stored on your private network while remaining accessible to your employees. Plus, with our managed data backup services, you can have peace of mind that your critical data can be restored should anything go wrong.
Ask Us About Our Remote Office Technologies
At Nomerel, we know how stressful it is to wrestle with complex technology decisions. To make our clients’ lives easier, we focus on finding the right solutions at the right price for each business, no matter if they’re a small, ambitious start-up or a large, longstanding corporation.
If you want to know how to set up mobile technology solutions for your team, get in touch. We’ll talk about the unique needs of your business and recommend a bespoke remote IT service that will help your organization to thrive, no matter where your team is working.
Remote workforces. Telecommuting. Working from home. Twenty years ago these were golden carrots that were dangled by employers to entice the top candidates, or pie in the sky dreams for ambitious employees to shoot for as their careers progressed. But as technology and communications have become more reliable, secure, and affordable, a mobile workforce has become a reality for many growing businesses.
That was true even before the recent public health issues impacting the global markets, but with social distancing and quarantines now being the new short-term norm, more businesses than ever understand the value of remote working. In this new marketplace, leveraging the latest technology to keep your workers connected and engaged will be the key to minimizing business disruption. We’re going to take a look at some key technologies that can help your team remain as productive as possible while they work from home.
Virtual Private Network
Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are frequently used by businesses to ensure their sensitive data is thoroughly protected, even when employees are accessing the network on business property. A VPN prevents data from being intercepted by hackers, something which is a very real risk when transferring data via the internet. However, the added benefit of using a VPN is that it makes it easier than ever to access data securely when employees work from home.
With a VPN in place, members of your team can connect securely to your business network from anywhere in the world, just as long as they have an internet connection. They can continue to access the essential data they need to keep working with complete peace of mind that sensitive information will not be vulnerable to interception. Data security is one of the biggest concerns for many employers when considering telecommuting for their teams, but by implementing solid security practices in the form of a VPN, you can keep your employees working at home while keeping your business safe from intrusion or disruption.
Microsoft Office 365
Despite being released back in 2011, Microsoft’s Office 365 platform continues to be one of the best and most popular business software systems on the market. The subscription-based system allows businesses to give their teams full access to the entire suite of Microsoft tools, including Outlook, SharePoint, Word, Excel, Skype, and more. The Office 365 suite is available for both desktop and mobile, which means it can transform almost any internet-connected device into a dynamo for productivity.
A significant benefit of Office 365 is that it makes collaboration between team members incredibly easy. For example, SharePoint allows employees to access shared documents all in one place, while Outlook has calendar and task management features to enable users to coordinate their schedules. With video conferencing ability available with Skype, teams can even continue to conduct meetings and keep one another up to speed with their projects.
VoIP Telephone Systems
Modern business telephone systems can do far more than just let your receptionist forward calls, mainly when they are VoIP Phone systems. VoIP transmits phone calls via an IP network instead of a traditional telephone exchange. As a result, it allows for a much wider variety of features that can make it easier than ever for teams to take calls at home.
With VoIP, it is possible to reroute business calls to personal cell phones or landlines so that employees can receive customer calls on their usual business phone numbers. Interactive voice response systems allow you to redirect phone calls to the right people at the right time. Plus, call recording and analysis systems can help you to monitor client phone calls no matter where they are received. Nomerel Cloud PBX, our cloud-based VoIP telephone system, is scalable to thousands of users, so even large corporations can ensure their employees are available for calls when working from home.
Long-term benefits of a remote workforce
The current health crisis may be forcing you to explore telecommuting solutions for your business, but as you do so, you’ll probably be surprised at how cost-effective they can be. Just like all things that were new ten or fifteen years ago, as the capabilities of remote workforce technology go up, the prices of such technologies come way, way down.
The big upside of remote workforce technology is the increase in productivity and the reduction in business disruption during situations such as the COVID-19 crisis. These may be unprecedented circumstances we’re living in, but having the flexibility to enable telecommuting could have huge benefits for your business in the years ahead. Once you have systems in place for remote working, you can rest easy in the knowledge that your business will continue to run no matter what stops your team from reaching the office.
Contact us about remote working
Wondering how to enable your crew to work from home? We can help. Get in touch to arrange a consultation; we’ll go over your business’s unique needs and help you to choose IT and telephone systems that will allow your team members to remain productive no matter where they work.
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