Your Documents Aren’t Safe. Here Are the Best Practices for Document Security

With the advent of 5G technology and Industry 4.0, businesses are under increased pressure to accelerate their digital transformation, and the demand for document management solutions has exploded.The global market for document management software is expected It will reach $10.17 billion by 2025. With this revolution comes an inherent concern about properly securing all this information. Documents often contain sensitive and private information that, if compromised, could adversely affect individuals, businesses, or governments. That’s why companies need to incorporate the highest level of document management security.

Related: Keep Your Information Moving at the Speed ​​of Your Business

Don’t wait to protect digital documents

As new vulnerabilities continue to be released regularly, and digital documents are more vulnerable than physical paper, securing these documents is more important than ever to prevent private information from being leaked.

It is common to read the news and learn about new things security breach. Affecting companies large and small, there were nearly 2,000 data breaches in the first half of 2022 alone. For many companies, their data is one of their most valuable assets and must be protected.

Ransomware, a type of malware designed to encrypt files and deny users access to them until a ransom is paid, is a clear threat. Phishing attacks, in which hackers attempt to obtain account credentials (usernames and passwords), represent an ongoing and evolving danger. Hackers usually lurk for a while and then eventually start logging in as that user to avoid suspicion. They then download documents that users can access, or, if sophisticated enough, attack network administrator privileges.

Who exactly is trying to hack into the system to get the files? Anyone who can find value in the type of data a company has. Hackers often don’t know the type of data a company has until they obtain company documents or know enough about the company to identify the type of information that might be available, such as financial or employee personally identifiable information (PII). This is literally any document they can use for profit.

What to look for in a document management partner

There are many outsourced document management vendors on the market today, but not all are created equal when it comes to providing the highest level of security. Here are four essential security features to look for from a document management partner:

1. End-to-end chain of custody and tracking: It’s important to know who has access to physical and digital documents. Chain of Custody is critical throughout the life cycle of a document. Any access should be logged so you can see who opened a particular document, when, and why. Partners should be able to display audit and chain of custody logs. This also helps ensure that only people with the appropriate permissions can access a particular document – no one else can.
2. Disaster Recovery, Failover, Redundancy and Guaranteed Access: With paper documents decreasing, systems and processes need to be in place to ensure that your digital documents are accessible in the event of a single point of failure. In a partner’s data center, if the internet goes down, you should still have a backup, redundant way to access these documents. Partners should be able to provide written reports showing ongoing testing and results, so you can be confident that in the event of a disaster, you know that failover will work.
3. Meets industry standards: Compliance standards, such as PCI for credit card information, HIPAA for health information, and SOC 2 Type II for policies and procedures, ensure full accountability for the security of any document and related processes. Compliance typically involves independent third-party assessments to ensure partners follow industry guidelines, perform necessary tasks, and implement appropriate controls to ensure the highest level of security. Partners should be able to provide certified evidence that they meet the necessary compliance standards for the type of documents you store.
4. Using the “continuous compliance” model: One of the downsides of compliance is that it’s an annual assessment, so sometimes companies lax throughout the year — and then get ready right at compliance time. Partners should be able to demonstrate compliance not only at the time of assessment but throughout the year.

Related: How to Develop a Security Policy for Your Company

Best practices companies can implement

In addition to needing the best technology solutions to help facilitate the digitization of documents, companies should also make security a top priority. Whether you’re a CSO, CTO, IT executive, or working with a third-party service provider, companies themselves should implement some best practices to ensure they do their part to protect their digital documents:

• Make safety a primary, proactive concern, not an afterthought;
• Conduct a comprehensive review of all accesses and actions taken on each digital document;
• ensure that appropriate data classification, retention and destruction protocols are established and followed;
• Test and document disaster recovery and business continuity solutions;
• Conduct periodic vulnerability scans of the environment and remediate all critical vulnerabilities found;
• Conduct regular security awareness training and require 100% employee participation; and
• Conduct regular chain of custody and security audits to ensure best practices are followed and documented.

For the highest level of digital document security, strategic collaboration should involve all stakeholders – including document management providers, IT, security and operations.