MONITORING SOFTWARE BLOG

With an increasing number of individuals moving to the global marketplace for work, it should come as no surprise that nearly 102 million people are estimated to work from home in 2020. However, with this shift away from the traditional office space comes a number of drastic changes.

Where businesses are seeing the financial rewards of remote workplaces, like decreases in operating and capital expenses (IDC, 2019), there comes an additional number of unknown factors. Some of these include the inability to regulate security as efficiently, and the de-unification of company trust and culture.

Most businesses carry a value that can be sold or manipulated in some way. If you store data from past transactions or collect personal information as leads, then these sources can be easily tapped into and extorted for financial gain.

Many people believe that hackers are the primary source of data breaches. However, according to IBM’s 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Study, just under 50% of all data breach cases are caused by an insider threat. 

One type of insider threat that you should be worried about occurs when employees are leaving your company. Departing employees can make mistakes that leave holes in your company’s firewall, but often times departing employees steal data as deliberate theft and do so for financial gain and future career development.  

Combating an insider threat can often present a more complicated problem than malicious online attacks. Insider threats are typically your own employees, the people you are required to trust to complete daily tasks. What happens when one of those trusted employees goes rogue?

It can be difficult to detect an insider threat, and many businesses don’t recognize the threat until a breach has already occurred. However, fifty percent of all malicious attacks are from an inside attacker, and they could cost your company up to $2 million dollars in time and assets.

Your employees are capable of completing a malicious attack on your company either by opening up your firewall to allow access or by physically stealing data. It is vital to set up precautions in network security and the physical security of your business.

As a class C level executive or the owner of an SMB, you may be curious where your employees’ time has gone. 

From the top-down, it would appear that your company’s numbers are dropping and you frequently see employees hanging around the office. It can be devastating to watch your ROI drop and to see negative trends in missed sales and customer retention. 

There are many reasons why employees become unproductive. As a business owner, it’s important that you address this lack of productivity head-on. Among a change in workplace culture, monitoring software can drastically improve employee efficiency. 

Encouraging productivity in the workforce is a task that many businesses struggle with. A lack of productivity can come about when your company is going through times of change like management transitions, or, it can be more systemic and one of the reasons why your company does not succeed above the competition.

According to the Harvard Business Review, an unproductive workforce during uncertain times is normal. But, as you may be asking, what does it mean when your workforce is not productive and times are, well, normal?

Whatever is happening at your company, you recognize that your employees need to improve their ability to focus and get work done.

What steps should you take? How do you keep employees focused and productive? 

Malicious attacks on large and SMB business data are increasingly on the rise and will cost your company potentially millions of dollars. Not only will investing in computer monitoring software protect your company against malicious insider threats, but it can also support your company’s short-learn and long-term productivity goals. 

Not sure what computer monitoring software is? We understand. As a business owner or IT response member, it can feel kind of invasive using computer monitoring software to monitor employee operations. We want you to feel comfortable knowing that this software’s aim is to protect your company, while still respecting the privacy of your employees.

Whether your company is a small, medium or large enterprise, a data breach could end up costing you customer trust, time, and a lot of money. 

IBM’s 17th Annual Cost of a Data Breach Report was released for 2020, and its discovered that in general, it is taking longer for data breaches to be contained and that malicious attacks, which were the most common, are also the most expensive cause of a data breach. 

How much could all of this cost you and how can you protect your bottom line from data breaches in 2020?