Perhaps the first and most important thing to say is that you can mitigate the risk of data breaches significantly but simply limiting who has access to data.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant amount of upheaval for HR professionals. In these unprecedented times there have been complicated issues including staff being furloughed, remote working becoming increasingly common, and significant changes in the way that staff work.
The people in the business form its backbone, and HR professionals have been facing a balancing act of looking after the needs of the individuals across the company, and ensuring that the organization runs efficiently.
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Amongst all of these issues, there is the problem of cybercrime. Through the pandemic, cybercrime has been growing at an alarming rate. It could be assumed that this is a problem for the IT department, but in fact all elements of the business need to take it seriously. When you consider that HR staff deal with highly sensitive personal data, it is absolutely essential that they know how to keep it secure.
Why it is important to secure HR data
Facing a hack in any part of your business can be a huge challenge for any company, but in HR it can cause extremely serious trouble. If your HR department is breached, it can do irreparable damage to both the company as a whole and to the lives of the employees. HR data encompasses some of the most sensitive information that the company has on file.
This includes everything from addresses and contact details to bank account details and more. Europe's GDPR and other data privacy laws are very strict about personal data too – so failing to keep employee data secure can actually result in your business being significantly fined. This means that you must take steps to keep your data safe.
Limit access
Perhaps the first and most important thing to say is that you can mitigate the risk of data breaches significantly but simply limiting who has access to data. If all members have staff have access on your system to all of the company's HR data, then if any of them are breached, the cybercriminals can have direct access to the data.
Remember that very few people need to have full access to all HR data – even if you have a large HR department, it is usually possible to limit access to only specific parts of the system at a time.
The challenges of remote working
One of the major issues that HR is facing is the rise of remote working. Remote working has many advantages for businesses, but it can also create challenges. HR workers who work remotely miss out on some of the protections that are provided by being in the office environment.
Members of the HR team need to really focus on their cybersecurity practice to ensure that are being as careful as possible when they do their work from their own home. It is also true that remote working can lead to a rise in members of staff using mobile devices as a part of their normal working day.
"Mobile security often gets forgotten about," says Michael Cowley of cybersecurity specialists Redscan. "However, with more of us working remotely and using our own personal devices to access corporate information, its importance in 2021 shouldn't be overlooked. Raising awareness of mobile-specific threats such as malicious mobile applications (which can be found lurking in app stores) and smishing should also be included as part of employee cyber awareness training".
There is no silver bullet
It is too often assumed by those without expertise in cybersecurity, that there is a simple path that has to be followed in order to keep the company safe. In fact, no such silver bullet exists and it is important to think about the specific ways that your business operates to get a true understanding of your cybersecurity needs and requirements.
It is advisable, then, if you don't have cybersecurity expertise to work with those who do. For many businesses, the cost of hiring cybersecurity staff in-house can be prohibitive, so it is a much better idea to consider working with outside consultants or outsourcing to specialists.
Final thoughts
Keeping HR data secure is something that all businesses need to consider a priority. It's not just the potential for harming your business, making life difficult for the staff whose data you lose, but also your reputation that can be significantly damaged by suffering a breach of HR data. If a company can't even look after the data of its own employees, why should customers trust them to carefully handle theirs?
Dakota Murphey has a wealth of experience in business management, with over 10 years of experience she's worked on a number of successful campaigns. She now enjoys sharing her knowledge through her writing and connecting with like-minded professionals.
