How can your print and sign company's administrative data fall into the wrong hands?

14 October 2024

Blogbeeld beschermen data

This happens more often than you think, but not in the way you might expect. Data theft is common in print production companies, so be cautious with Cloud Software. Software needs to be in the cloud, but not the entire software. It is increasingly common for employees to unknowingly export customer data, company info, quotations, ... export. But how do you ensure that commercial, financial and administrative data is not used for malicious purposes?

Data theft is more common in print production companies than you might think

The biggest source of data theft turns out to be employees. It is unimaginable how casually people handle passwords and crucial company information. Just think of employees who leave the company and start looking up and exporting data unsolicited during the last four weeks of their notice period, or ex-employees who still have access to accounts once they have left.

So, to avoid sharing this company information externally, it is important that employees know how to handle it. Their behaviour should be monitored to minimise risks. One way to do this is by integrating access codes and conducting regular audits. It is also important that employees feel comfortable reporting any irregularities without fear of the consequences. So encourage the reporting of suspicious situations, this way, you already limit financial risks.

Otherwise, employees will take company information with them to their next employer. This has immediate financial consequences for print businesses. Corporate reputation is also destroyed through this route. Companies may take years to regain customers' trust. And this causes you to realise lower profit margins.

Abnormal amounts of administrative data is being exported

Employees leaving the company do not always have the noblest of intentions. An export of their customers may be well-intentioned. Or an export is made of their quotations or business relations. But as a business leader, should you be okay with that? When surveyed, 95% of business leaders disagree. That's why Dataline has created a Premium Service, the MultiPress ILS (Inside Leak Surveillance).

 ILS discretely monitors for abnormal actions by anyone in the past month, so that an alert can be generated immediately. Think of situations like employees exporting hundreds of records at once. You immediately receive a report with detailed data such as IP addresses and user information of the potential intruder. Inside Leak Surveillance alerts you to react proactively and take the necessary steps to prevent further damage. By being notified in time, there is an opportunity to restore the integrity of security measures. This can be done, for example, by changing login credentials or implementing additional security layers to minimise the impact of attacks.

A few more tips

These are several other ways you can protect the digital identity of your print production company:

  • As a company, it is important to have an offboarding process that ensures that all access rights (to networks, databases, cloud storage services or other company-related systems) of ex-employees are immediately revoked as soon as they leave the company. So make sure your software can determine access rights. When employees leave the company, you should be able to minimise their rights.
  • Make sure you keep comprehensive audit logs and regularly monitor for suspicious activities, such as copying or exporting large amounts of data.
  • Increase monitoring of employee activities during their notice period. Watch for unusual access patterns or data transfers. As discussed earlier, this can be done via the MultiPress ILS, for example.
  • In an exit process, ensure employees sign a confidentiality agreement requiring them to keep company information confidential even after they leave the company.

So above all, limit access to your administrative ERP. If data is exported, make sure you can prove it. And discourage employees so that they don't do nefarious things at the end of their careers.

Do you also want to monitor abnormal operations within your print production company, print media company? Then get in touch now!