Distrust of technology has increased in the past couple of years due to Google, Amazon, and other tech companies admitting to collecting user data over time. Unfortunately, this distrust of companies and software can even spill over to your employees.
Leadership must do everything in their power to make the work environment secure for everyone, and they can start by helping employees secure their work accounts.
How to Improve Account Security Directly
Use a Company-Wide Password Manager—Password managers allow employees to store their passwords in one place securely. No one else can see an employee’s vault unless they have the master password, which, hopefully, your employees aren’t sharing with others.
Keeping up with passwords quickly encourages employees to create strong and unique passwords instead of repeating the same password for all of their accounts—a big problem facing companies today. Fortunately, company-wide password managers can be had for a relatively low price nowadays; there’s no excuse not to implement one.
Enable Two-Factor Authentication. Passwords by themselves are not enough to protect the majority of online accounts anymore. If you want to ensure that your employees’ accounts are as secure as possible, then you need to enable two-factor authentication for all of them. Why? Two-factor authentication couples a username and password with the account holder’s phone (or SIM card) or email account, for example, making it exponentially more challenging for a hacker to gain access.
Other Ways to Secure Your Business
Offer Cybersecurity Training to Employees. Human error can—and often does—lead to data breaches and hacked accounts. For this reason, it is crucial to the security of your company that you train employees on what it means to take cybersecurity seriously.
For example, you can hold a cybersecurity seminar in-house. If your employees work remotely, you can offer free training courses or have meetings to go over proper cybersecurity protocol.
Focus on Workplace Security. As employees return to the workplace, it is vital that businesses keep the workplace secure. Within the cybersecurity framework, leadership should look into requiring employee-specific keycards for entry into the workplace, monitoring if employees are taking devices home, and checking the network for strange activity.
You should trust your employees. However, you also need to understand the risks of a workplace with loose restrictions and what could happen if an insider makes their way into the building.
Conclusion
The software development industry is ripe with cybercriminals who target employees and often succeed. To protect not only your employees but your company, it is vital that you keep up with the latest security standards, train your employees, and begin securing work accounts.
