Documents and Cybercrime: Why a Document Management System is important

With increasing cybercrime, security for documents and implementing a document management system is more important now than ever before.

Cybercrime is at epidemic proportions and cybercriminals have ‘eyes on’ small businesses. IBM Corp.’s Chairman and President, Ginni Rometty, recently said that cybercrime may be the greatest threat to every company in the world.

Cybercrime has quadrupled since 2015. Juniper research recently predicted that, “the rapid digitization of consumers’ lives and enterprise records will increase the cost of data breaches to $2.1 trillion globally by 2019—almost four times the estimated cost of breaches in 2015.”

According to Forrester research, 25 percent of breaches occur because of a “malicious insider.” Considering the number of human touch points for documents, it’s easy to see how cybercriminals can get a hold on your system.

Where are the hidden document security risks in an unsecured environment?

1. Networked Printers—advanced printers, scanners and fax machines are like computers and create security risks because they store data on hard drives connected and they are connected to wireless networks.

2. Unsecured Mobile Printing with Smartphones and Tablets—fall outside your company’s print security radar. Documents are often released without use of PIN code or badge authentication.

3. Lack of an Audit Trail—preventing compliance breakdowns can be difficult with no plan to catch patterns of misuse.

4. Cloud Printing Infections and Increased Use of Android-based Personal Devices—make it possible for cyber criminals to infect mobile devices or attach to cloud printing jobs, simultaneously infecting the entire organization. Equally alarming, malware apps can bypass firewalls.

How does a document management system minimize breach risks?

A robust, company-wide document management system helps prevent cybercriminals from reaching sensitive documents by creating a barricade that keeps the malware from jumping from the client to the document management server.

What to look for in the best document management system features.

Improving security to your on-premise system is critical and should include:

• Encrypted Storage of sensitive data.
• Role-Based Security to help prevent unauthorized users from writing data to a jump drive, DVD or other device.
• Integrated on-line backup in offsite storage to protect sensitive data if a disaster occurs.
• Automatic backup when combined with on-line backup keeps storage up to date.
• Document sharing that’s secure when working with customers, sub-contractors and others off site.

As cyber threats evolve and grow, more businesses are partnering with outside experts who can provide experience and specialized knowledge, coupled with many tools to implement a strong document management program.

These experts have “been around the block” with dozens of other companies and can provide input on how to implement document security solutions in ways that allow your employees to efficiently do their jobs.  In fact, often, the new solution will not only make your organization more secure, but streamline your employee work processes.

At the least, it’s worth a quick call to pick their brain about what other organizations are doing. Frankly, you can’t afford not to.