South African companies are increasingly using advanced mobile software for information-sensitive systems like ERP, making it more critical than ever for organisations to strengthen employee awareness around safe mobile practices, says Deidre Fryer, Syspro Africa product manager
It’s no wonder more and more companies are investing in mobility – the benefits of empowering a mobile workforce are substantial for both the business and its employees.
And as mobility continues to take the professional world by storm, so companies will start including more mobile software in their tech infrastructure. In fact, according to The Mobile Corporation in South Africa 2018, a study conducted by World Wide Worx in partnership with SYSPRO, 43.2% of those surveyed said their companies plan to increase mobile business software usage.
The study, which was based on interviews with 400 IT decision-makers at large enterprises in South Africa, also revealed that 31.5% of respondents already use advanced mobile software across software categories such as ERP. It’s not surprising.
The advantages of using a mobile ERP solution like Syspro Espresso, for example, are massive. Suddenly a wealth of business insights – all of your planning, forecasting and budgeting – is available at your fingertips, anytime, anywhere.
Make sure your security is up to scratch
Important though, is for businesses to be extremely vigilant in ensuring the right security infrastructure is in place before rolling out mobile software. ERP systems in particular hold vast amounts of incredibly sensitive information – which is probably why 77.7% of IT decision makers indicated ERP was essential to their businesses.
And, when speaking about the ‘right security infrastructure’, it’s even more important to be aware that we aren’t simply speaking about the tech solutions themselves.
Naturally apps like Espresso are kitted out to ensure all information and communication remains secure. But, the unfortunate reality is that, while many cyber threats remain external, the majority of threats to your business will come from the inside, with your employees often playing an unwitting role in compromising the business’ security.
Threats often originate from the inside
And with more and more professionals connecting to the internet – the study shows that even in organisations with between 1001 and 2500 employees, around 50% of the staff complement is online – the internal threat to you business’ information is only going to increase.
By default, most companies will look at combatting this threat using various tech solutions – and well they should. But, what many businesses don’t realise is that their best line of defence is actually employee awareness and education.
Education is your best line of defence
And based on what we understand about the current nature of cyberattacks, the bulk of this education should be based around how phishing attempts can be avoided.
We know that at the moment ransomware is the cyber activity favoured by hackers. According to the NTT Security 2018 Global Threat Intelligence Report, ransomware accounted for almost 30% of all cyberattacks in EMEA, making it the number one malware for the region.
Interestingly though, the Report also revealed that in spite of increased ransomware infection rates across the world, ransomware-related incident response outsourced engagements dropped significantly from 22% in 2016 to 5% in 2017 – largely as a result of improved user awareness.
Don’t click that link
And key to user education is driving the message home that employees need to be extremely wary of clicking on links that come from an untrustworthy source. In some cases, this requires greater vigilance than in others as many hackers will try and imitate links and e-mail address that do originate from trusted sources.
To avoid falling victim, employees should look out for slight variations in spelling to the authentic address. It’s also a good idea to hover over a link before clicking on it and verify that it leads where it is supposed to.
Ensuring their app password – particularly an ERP app – cannot easily be compromised is also vitally important. Employees must formulate passwords which can’t easily be hacked, and remember never to write them down. Leaving their devices where someone else can easily access them is also asking for trouble.
Making sure your employees are aware of these simple cybersecurity measures could end up saving your business hundreds of thousands in damages.
So as you equip your people with more mobile software – particularly advanced mobile software across categories like ERP – make sure you empower them with knowledge as well.