Data breaches are the final frontier in the game of man vs. machine, and man is taking a serious beating. But document management software facilitates compliance and security, giving businesses an untapped resource to combat cyber-attacks.
IBM recently reported in the Ponemon Institute’s annual research on data breaches report that in 2017 alone, data breaches had cost American organizations $3.62 million.
But it’s surprisingly easy for businesses to stop these attacks in their tracks. Low-cost document management solutions can prevent considerable future damage. The applicability of these systems in a variety of business contexts like daily processes and document organization is what makes them great catchall solutions in the fight against data breach and identity theft today and in the future.
Which Form of Data Breaches Pose the Biggest Threats?
Internal Data Breach
Sometimes businesses are so consumed with protecting their data and files from external intruders that they don’t see the breach paths beneath their own noses.
Nearly half of all data breaches are internal, and occur at the documentation level. This worrisome statistic should encourage you to make sure all documents are secure and only accessible by those that need them to do their job.
A document management solution’s role-based security could stave off these internal threats provided all files and appropriate role-based user permissions are administered from the outset of tech adoption, usage, and training of new and existing employees.
A system administrator of the document management software would merely have to determine which tiers of file accessibility should be applied to employees on an employee-by-employee or group of employee basis.
This example serves as a microcosm for how document management software can prevent malicious ransomware attacks, too.
Ransomware
Although ransomware has decreased significantly in the last few years, it is still a serious security concern for all computer users to be aware of. A ransomware attack is when a message pops up telling the user that their files have been locked. A ransom is required to access the files again.
What’s more, once the user pays the ransom for their files, there’s no guarantee that the attacker will actually unlock the victim’s files.
Ransomware is one of the most pervasive and threatening forms of data breaches, and most businesses remain unaware of how exposed they are to impending attacks.
How Ransomware Can Ruin Your Business
Document management software facilitates compliance and security because although all businesses without securely stored data are susceptible to ransomware, the healthcare industry has been hit more intensely by these breaches than any other industry. The greatest risk of ransomware attacks are smaller clinics and independent contractors.
Ransomware accounted for nearly 75% of healthcare malware attacks in 2016. The following example illustrates how devastating this can be for hospital and healthcare clinics’ reputations, breach fines, and even medical practice licensure.
The healthcare industry is more susceptible to ransomware attacks than ever, and it’s by far the biggest problem affecting HIPAA compliance and protected health information (PHI).
How Document Management Software Can Resolve Ransomware Breaches in Healthcare and other Industries
As a single solution that upholds all physical and technical safeguard HIPAA compliance guidelines, a document management solution ensures simple storage and organization of records into the solution via Zonal OCR (an automated file routing and classification tool that routes documents once they’re scanned into the solution), that not only prevents arbitrary file nomenclature, but also makes it easier to apply the system’s security features to all of an organization’s documentation.
Document management software facilitates compliance and security by also helping its users transcend EDI breaches in email.
Transcending Email-based Data Breach with Document Management Software Web Portals
Although email has become commonplace for communicating almost any data and doesn’t seem to be risky at all, there are multiple points in email interchange where messages stop, and these points are breach-able.
The way to overcome this specific downfall of email is to rely on document management software with a web portal that provides users with access to its storage, which accomplishes two important security objectives:
- The portal transcends breach with SSL and Bank-grade encryption
- The files never leave the portal, making them impossible to breach in interchange
Although emails not containing sensitive data are fine to send on both an internal and external basis, a document with sensitive information that could cause major lawsuits if discovered by an unwelcome party should be sent through one of these web portals.
These web portals have become especially popular among accountants and financial professionals, as they frequently send sensitive client data back and forth with their clients, and steer clear of the risk of large fines from lawsuits should they fail to secure their clients’ data.
Relying on a web portal tool has concomitant benefits unrelated to security, too. It provides an organization with an opportunity to brand its security efforts with customization features, and increase its web presence through a custom domain, which strengthens website traffic at a rate consistent with the number of users entering the portal.
A web portal also provides the company using it with the opportunity to leverage another channel of income. Charging clients a small fee for using the web portal is not yet a standard practice, but there are accountants and financial advisers who regularly do this so that the system comes at no extra cost to them.
The earnings from this web portal security feature would also compound as financial advisers and accountants earn more clients with the efficiency document management software provides them.
Today is so rife with data breach, most clients are happy to pay a small fee to use any security tool with which their accountant or financial adviser provides them to get peace of mind knowing that their information will always be safe.
Why Document Management Software Facilitates Compliance and Security in the Most Important Battle of All
The future of the man vs. machine standoff depends on whether we control our information, or cyber-attacks and data breaches do, and document management software is one simple solution to help humankind regain control of the precious data it has created.