Ensuring data security at a workplace is inevitably arduous, and gets even more challenging with the commencement of work from home among the employees.

The result? An ever-increasing concern for data breaching and exploitation of sensitive company information.

Where working with remote teams used to be an option merely a month ago, the global outbreak of COVID-19 has pushed all the corporations to work from their bedrooms now. But don’t worry, guys. Working while lying on the bed with a mug of coffee right beside you is not a bad idea! (I guess)

But the question still remains the same- how do we maintain work discipline among the people who are not even sitting next to us? Can we keep an eye on them?

Of course, you can.

You can make use of user activities monitoring software to make sure that your co-workers utilize the company data aptly. But is it okay to keep track of employee activities- you may think so. Let me get a bit into it.

 

Why Is Cyber Security Important? 

 

I mean, of course, you know why it is so crucial, but do you know that only 5% of a company’s folders, on an average, are properly protected? (Source- Verizon)

And oh, 34% of data breaches involve internal workers. Added it, any average employee in a company has access to over 80% of your company’s files.

Well, I guess I should stop here as I do not intend to scare you, but these are some REAL facts. There are dozens of such stats, and you can Google about them along with the companies that have faced the consequences.

I don’t think I need to stress on it now, but it will be really sad if your company scales up to the list of such organizations on Google. (Silent sobs)

Want to make sure your company avoids any such mishap, ESPECIALLY during this Corona downturn with employees working remotely? Then read ahead.

 

Keeping Data Security In Check 

 

Are we done with the why discussion here? Good. Let’s get into how to section now. Here is a step-by-step guide to how you can make sure your employees keep your precious data protected:

 

1. Separate Profiles for Company 

If you know what I am talking about, you might think of skipping this step, but HOLD UP! You don’t have to. It’s important. For those who have no idea about what the hell I am saying, creating separate profiles means creating new user profiles for an employee while they work for the company.

It includes a new google drive id, a new user profile on the applications that you are going to allot them, and everything similar. However, the employees cannot use these ids for personal purposes. They can only perform official tasks with it.

What’s the use? Listen to me. When you create and keep a record of your employees’ user profiles, you get virtual access to everything that they do with it. Meaning, you can review every email they send or receive, every person that they talk to, the files they edit, and everything else.

In short, you can check all the files that they exchange, and look for any objectionable data to take necessary actions later. (Hurray!) 

 

2. Employee Monitoring Software 

As I already mentioned earlier, there are several user activities monitoring software available in the market that let you track the activities on your employees’ systems. One of the best of them is EmpMonitor. I have listed some of the features that are worth mentioning here:

 

• Regular Screenshots 

EmpMonitor generates screenshots of your employees’ systems at regular intervals. You can adjust the intervals accordingly, starting from 15 seconds. This feature will let you track the activities of any individual in real-time. So you don’t have to worry about any data misuse while you are looking into it directly. Plus, you can also keep a record of the screenshots of the last 90 days.

 

 

• Top Applications and Websites 

You can also look for the top applications and websites that your employees visit during the working hours. It means that you can be aware of what your employees go through, what distracts them the most, which apps catch their maximum attention, etc. This way, you can avoid any potential threats from any website that can lead to data leakage, check for any malware that can enter their systems by reviewing their visited sites, etc.

 

• Stealth Mode 

Employers can track and monitor their employees’ systems without them knowing about it. The stealth mode ensures that the software’s icon doesn’t pop on the taskbar or user history, and the workers stay unaware of any tracking activity going on. This way, you can check for any suspicious activities and avoid them beforehand.

 

BTW, here are Best 05 Ways To Prevent Employee Fraud In Your Organization 

 

• Keystroke Logging 

EmpMonitor also lets you know about the words that your employees type. Meaning, you get to know about every word that they are searching on the internet, every email that they are sending, what they talk about when they are chatting with someone on their systems, and everything else. Believe it or not, keystroke tracking is one of the best ways to ensure data security.

 

• User Logs and History Tracking 

Not to mention, browser history is indispensable when you talk about user activities monitoring. Even when someone deletes their browsing history, EmpMonitor keeps a record of it. Meaning, no one can deceive you with their browsing records. And even if someone does, you can hunt them down and record every single task that they have performed, along with their login and log out times. (Hackerman) 

 

3. Regular Work Updates 

 

Check and recheck the work status of your employees, and look for any kind of doubtful behavior. One of the most common things among work from home employees is that they get distracted pretty easily, resulting in initial delaying of tasks. However, a frequent occurrence of such activities may be a solid indication of something fishy.

Various other behavioral changes like increasing communication among a set of employees, multiple sharing of unnecessary files, tempering and viewing official data repeatedly, etc. point directly towards unacceptable movements of your employees.

 

4. Strict Policies 

 

This point is as obvious as the noonday sun. When you implement strict policies and take necessary actions against the ones who violate it, it becomes extremely feasible to maintain discipline. When employees are aware of the outcomes of their actions, they prefer to restrict themselves from proceeding to any direction that may result in drastic consequences.

However, making policies is not enough if the company itself doesn’t follow the guidelines properly. The first thing that you need to consider is the thorough and immediate implementation of all the policies among every employee- whether they are seniors or juniors. Else, nobody is going to take the rules seriously, resulting in easy leakage of the company’s valuable data.

 

Ready To Reach The Peaks? 

It doesn’t matter if you are a small company, or a large firm, employee monitoring is for everyone. This quarantine, make sure your company retains its spot in the market without compromising its data security. Work from home is something you cannot even imagine avoiding at this moment. And let’ admit, it’s pretty boring too!

So why not look for ways and means to increase the productive hours instead of sitting idle in our beds? Quarantine has posed a challenge for your company to be productive at a time when everything feels lazy. Make sure you utilize and benefit from it.