Did you know that Acumatica cloud ERP helps keep your important financial data safe? That’s because cloud-based technology such as Acumatica offers additional layers of security and protection for your valuable corporate data.
As the CFO of a company or a member of the finance and accounting team, you’re privy to some of your company’s most important information. The financial data, not to mention the personal information found in payroll and employment records, are magnets for cybercriminals. If your company manages direct deposits for employees, accepts bank transfers as payment for invoices, and accepts credit cards, that opens the door to even greater risk.
It’s important to assess the potential risk throughout your company and to take steps to mitigate the risk.
Assessing Risk: Where Are the Vulnerabilities?
The CFO of the company is typically the gatekeeper to sensitive financial information. Therefore, many CFOs find themselves in charge of cybersecurity, especially if the company doesn’t have a specialist or an IT department to take the lead.
If you find you’ve been dubbed security officer as well as CFO, then take the lead to analyze the potential risk to your company. With the typical data breach costing companies $148 per record, and companies home to thousands or perhaps millions of records, the price tag quickly adds up.
The following provides a brief outline of areas of high potential vulnerability for the typical company and areas to focus on to improve security. You may also wish to consult with a cybersecurity expert to discuss specific concerns.
- Data access: Review who has access to sensitive corporate data. This includes human resources, banking, and payroll information. Limit access to only those who need it.
- Secure passwords: Ensure that everyone in your company is using strong passwords. Some companies require employees to change passwords monthly. Strong passwords are those that are difficult to guess and include capital and lower-case letters, numbers, and random characters.
- User- and role-based access: Many financial programs provide user and role-based access to sensitive data. In Acumatica, for example, users can be assigned levels of access depending upon their role and job function. This is important to secure confidential data if many people in your organization use the ERP system, which is typical of most companies. Allowing access to data is good but controlling access to sensitive data is a must.
- BYOD policies: With many companies embracing a bring your own device (BYOD) policy in regard to mobile phones, tablets, and laptops, it’s important to set policies regarding use of company servers, email, and software. A cloud-based software such as Acumatica ERP provides a higher level of security for your data than site-based software because cloud systems protect vulnerable data through multiple layers of security. These layers are more sophisticated than the average home network, for example. Plus, if an employee leaves the company, you do not have to worry about removing software from their device. Cloud systems are accessed over the internet, so you can remove them from the system to shut off their access and prevent them from logging in.
- Training and awareness: We often imagine that security breaches occur when sophisticated criminals find ways to circumvent our best defenses. In reality, it’s a lot simpler for criminals to gain access. Simple phishing attacks, trojan viruses, and other malware often do the trick faster and easier than brute force attacks. Training and awareness are important proactive steps to prevent these simple tricks from allowing criminals access to your files. For example, make sure that staff is aware that emails from the bank, credit card companies, and other financial institutions requesting password resets should be ignored until researched, and if you DO reset your password, do not click on a link in an email. Instead, close your email system, close your browser, open it again, and log into your account separately. It’s these simple steps which can prevent criminals from tricking employees into revealing passwords to criminals.
How Acumatica Keeps Data Safe
Acumatica helps keep your data safe by including many additional features for added peace of mind. These extra security features include:
- Choice over where your data is stored
- Control over access to the system, including role and user-based access settings
- Choice over the installation of Acumatica, with hosted sites offering 24/7 security monitoring
- Browser processes occur on the server side, not on the user’s computer, so one infected computer may not compromise all the data
- Encrypted data storage and communication
To learn more about Acumatica ERP’s security features, speak with Emerald TC today. We offer ERP consulting services and more to help you choose the best ERP system for your needs.
What price would you put on secure data? Take steps now to safeguard your company’s data and speak with Emerald TC’s ERP consulting services for more information. Please contact us or call 678-456-6919.