The Cloud, Social Media, and Security

The struggle between the needs of employees and the responsibility of the IT department has always been a tough one. Each and every employee – including the IT staff – go into work intent on doing their job in the most efficient way possible. For many employees, that means finding tools that will allow them to collaborate and share work seamlessly and quickly, whether or not it’s approved by their IT department.

Cloud services, such as Google Drive, or Social Media services, such as Facebook and Google Hangouts, have made it easier for employees to share work, interact with co-workers without pausing to pick up the phone or walk down the hall, and even work remotely when necessary.

But they’ve also become a nightmare for IT departments.

Unfortunately – as Forbes points out – this increased productivity and efficiency (and sure, probably some social updating as well), means that employees are using technology and apps that are “within the organization, but out of your control.” This means that if something goes wrong – if there’s a security breach or data loss – it’s still something that the IT department will need to handle, even though the services weren’t necessarily something the IT department dealt with.

The “easy” approach would probably be to lock down your company’s external Internet access and tell employees that they’ve got to make do with the resources that the IT department provides, but unfortunately that isn’t very realistic. In today’s workplace – one that seems to stress “work-life integration” –  employees expect that they’ll be able to access files quickly and easily or that they’ll be able to pop onto Facebook for a few minutes every once in a while. For some employees, having access to various Cloud sharing portals and Social Media platforms may even be part of their job depending on the industry you’re in.

Additionally, the emergence of Bring Your Own Device policies has had an impact as well. While your employees may not be able to access certain websites while connected to the company’s network, if they do work from home on their personal computer or are using their personal phone for business as well, all bets are off. If they accidentally download a virus on their personal computer and it somehow gets embedded in a work document that then gets shared with even one person in your company, the entire company is now at risk!

 At Technical Support International (TSI), we’re well-versed in keeping your company safe. For over 25 years we’ve worked with IT managers and companies to ensure the security of their technology environments. From deploying anti-virus software to firewalls, vulnerability scanning, and VPNs, we’ve done it all.

 For more information on how we can keep your company safe, call us at (508) 543-6979.