Communications are a crucial part of modern business infrastructure. Therefore, maintaining security in these areas is essential to keep your information safe. Here are 7 things you need to consider when building up your team’s communication security.

Enhanced Physical Security

Oftentimes, the focus on digital security means some corporations fail to realize the network’s physical safety is just as useful. Your team needs to collaborate with the IT department on the best security for your communication’s physical security.

These dangers come in the form of nature, accidents, and even intentional sabotage. Attach alarms to the physical mediums that your communication network requires. Make sure the placement of your main network devices is in a low-traffic area seen by security cameras.

The fewer people walk past, the less chance of there being any accidents that go unnoticed. The more communication networks you have set up, the more physical security you must take into account.

In-Depth Network Planning

Before your communication networks are even set up, the topology, software, and hardware must be meticulously planned. Many of these assets already have pre built details about how secure they are, on both a physical and digital level. For hardware, make sure that their power supplies are continuous and safe.

Redundancies must be put in place so that in case of primary network failure, the team is capable of some form of communication. As much as possible, make sure the network is autonomous in different areas. That way, failure in one area does not mean the entire infrastructure is down.

Lastly, make sure that your networks can host the number of employees in your workplace. Proper planning is one of your best tools against vulnerabilities in your web security.

Extensive Software Security Add-ons

The use of services in your network software, be it built-in or 3^rd party, must be documented and utilized to their fullest extent. The overall security of your network is improved with useful security add-ons. For example, security software that adds features such as:

·         Network Traffic Observation

·         Illegal Access Prevention

·         Cloud Control of Devices

·         Jamming Detection

·         Anti-Virus Software

·         Secure File Sharing

·         2-Factor Authentication

-and pretty much any feature that you believe your network needs. Collaborate with your IT team on what software add-ons to add to your security infrastructure.

Proper Operation Procedures

Installation of security features is one thing, but maintaining them is another. Your team must take care to test the reliability of your communication network. All communications software requires regular updates, to ensure that they are secured communication platforms.

Physical devices could also be updated every few years, as degradation could be a breach in security. In addition, make sure that maintenance is handled by the IT department and even then, only specifically assigned people. Whenever any staff makes changes to the network, they should be required to log any changes they made and what date they did so.

Employee Security Training

Communication is done between users, and users are the most vulnerable part of any security network setup. The safest of network setups stand no chance against the ignorance of people who use them. Thus, you must properly instill in your team the importance of security. Teach them safe communication practices such as:

·         Never using work emails or confidential files at home

·         A basic understanding of the network infrastructure

·         Encryption of important files

·         Knowing how much information to share in the body of an email

If your users are trained in communication security, that makes your network much safer than before. Knowledge is at the forefront of preventing data breaches. Not to mention, this increases employee security even at home, which minimizes the risk of an external attack.

Stay in Touch

While this may seem obvious, it is an often-underrated aspect of communication security. On all critical tasks, you must ensure that nothing is going wrong. Safety features should be installed on every employee’s device, especially if they hold precious data. Features such as:

·         End-to-end encryption

·         Where’s My Device features to tell where any company device is at any given moment

·         Last Activity Checker, features that give updates of a device’s last activity

Whether a device is stolen or hacked, having these sorts of features in place helps you find compromised data quickly and securely.

Hire a White Hat Hacker

There’s no better way to test your security than actually attacking it. Much like a newly forged shield must have things thrown at it to check its sturdiness, so must your network undergo attack to check its defenses.

While your IT team is responsible for the setting up of defenses, white hats specialize in finding holes in these defenses. If you don’t want malicious hackers to infiltrate your system, just get non-malicious ones to do it first.

After the fake “attack”, the white hat will point out the flaws in your security and collaborate with your IT team to plug those holes with new security features. From there, they simply repeat the cycle until your network is sufficiently shielded from attack.