File sharing security has become all important in today’s internet era. There are layers and layers of security infrastructure, verification technology and sophisticated back end coding that tries to protect you from hackers who can benefit from your confidential information. Why is there a need for such stringent security standards? What are the pitfalls of not using the right technology for file sharing? That is the question we are addressing in this post.
Not Securing Your Files With The Right Technology Would Lead To Confidential Leaks Of Your Data
Imagine your competitive information getting in the hands of competitors. What would happen if your proprietary formulas, your strategy, your marketing plans was out there for everyone to see? One can assume that the impact would be quite damaging. If your industry peers can peek into your HR details to see how much you pay your executives then they can easily poach them. These are the people who know the most inner workings of your company. Would you want them working against you? Now consider the impact on the value of your stocks if insider information goes public. Would it not make your company more susceptible to the trading vagaries of the market? File sharing security has to be at the core of how your business runs. Let us have a look at what you can do to protect your business:
Steps You Should Take To Secure Your Files
Enforce Confidentiality At All Times Whether you are running a due diligence transaction or whether you are sharing documents with employees internally, you should always be able to disable print and copy as well as apply a watermark on each page. These seemingly simple security measures go a long way to ensuring that your confidentiality is maintained.
Track Usage And Interest Of The Various Parties When multiple users from various groups, internal and external, are accessing your data simultaneously, it can be beneficial to track the usage patterns. The number of document opens can be a telling sign of the interest a user group has. In addition, out of the ordinary usage patterns can be flagged and investigated to make sure that confidentiality is being maintained.
Provide Different Levels Of Access Based On The Stage Of The Deal You Are in Every user group should have different levels of access. Those who are in top management should be able to access everything whereas those who have departmentmental roles should be able to access only those files that are relevant for their job. Giving a blanket access level to everyone is not recommended in any scenario.
Shut Out The User From The Files When Required If an employee leaves the company or if a bidder group is no longer interested in the process then it should be easy to shut them out from your files at the click of a button. File sharing would not be secure without this feature.
Have A Team That Is Trained To Combat Any Form Of Social Engineering Social engineering in the context of file sharing and security refers to psychological manipulation of people into performing actions to divulge confidential information. If the people who are managing the systems are well trained and aware of this problem then they will be better prepared to tackle it if and when they ever encounter such a scenario.
Security Systems And Infrastructure Are The Backbone Of Secure File Sharing Without the right infrastructure, all of the above points will be hard to implement. You need to implement not only the latest technologies but also the most third party audited processes to ensure that there is no room for loopholes. Prevention is better than cure!
How you share your files and how well they are secured during the sharing process should be at the core of how you run your business. You are leaving your business open to leaks in confidential information such as trade secrets, HR records and marketing plans if you don’t take active measures to implement technology that you can enforce at all levels of your company. The ability to enforce confidentiality, track usage, have a professionally trained team and the right security infrastructure will protect you on the internet.
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