Protecting your company information in a mobile workforce

Not that any business owner needs additional reasons to worry at night, but consider these two scenarios.

Your recently hired chief technical officer gets hired away by the competition, but not before you had given him complete access to your company's vital information, including a client list, marketing strategies and employee records.

Or, possibly even worse, you are forced to terminate an employee at a senior level position, and it does not go well (does it ever, really?). This disgruntled employee makes a veiled threat, upon departure, to "share your company secrets with the world," and you are left apprehensive as to what he or she might do.

Hopefully, you never face such situations in your business.

But even among "friendly" employees there are dangers. And employers who do not take prudent steps to protect and safeguard their company information imperil their business.

The most well-intentioned, team-player, pro-company employee may well have company information, or access to it, on his/her personal computer, table or iPhone.

Most companies allow and encourage people to work from home to be more immediately responsive to client needs.

Understandable … but consider that all it takes to wreak havoc on a company infrastructure is to have one employee open an email that looks "legitimate," but is actually a virus that then makes its way into your company infrastructure.

In fact, a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. report published in 2013 referenced a survey of more than 3,000 employees in the U.S., U.K. and other countries which cited that 74 percent of respondents had access to proprietary company information such as customer data, employee records, software tools and more. Increasingly, some of this information finds itself on personal devices.

Using personal devices for company business and sharing files in the cloud and on platforms such as Dropbox means that, in the absence of specific guidelines, many companies do not adequately protect their information.

One survey cites an alarming statistic, that up to 50 percent of employees who change jobs may take confidential information with them, and that many use it to help them in their new position. In the wrong hands, sensitive company information can have a devastating effect.

Setting that aside, a larger threat is having company information on devices that can be easily (and possibly unknowingly) hacked.

What are some steps that you, as an employer, can take?

1. Have a policy where it is forbidden to house company information on any personal devices. If you want employees to work from home, provide company-owned laptops, phones, and tablets. Have employees sign a statement at the beginning of their employment that they understand this and will comply with it.

2. Change your passwords frequently, and use a mix of numbers, letters and characters.

This step, in fact, might be the easiest and cheapest thing you can do to make information less subject to being hacked.

3. Educate employees as to what is and is not acceptable regarding company Internet usage. It is permissible to set standards and prohibit visiting nonwork websites, which might not only enhance productivity but also protect technological devices from picking up viruses and malware.

4. Enforce nondisclosure agreements, which should include a description of information that departing employees may and may not take with them.

5. Use technology to monitor where corporate data is going, how it's leaving, and when to notify managers and employees about sensitive information that is inappropriately sent or copied.

6. Train employees on how to recognize threats to infrastructure. This can include emails from an address they recognize but with an unusual request, or an unexpected "technician" stopping by to check the server room.

7. Be certain you have a strong anti-virus infrastructure in place.

Education of employees is critical when it comes to protecting information. When in doubt, contact a managed services professional to be sure you are doing what you can to keep your information secure.

• Chip Miceli is president of Des Plaines Office Equipment (www.dpoe.com) in Elk Grove Village.