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How the Cloud Keeps Data Safe for Financial Firms

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A 2019 Global Wealth Study by Boston Consulting group reported financial services firms are hit by cyberattacks 300 times more than other companies. Financial institutions have a lot of sensitive data cybercriminals can monetize if accessed. That is why the financial services industry is so heavily regulated.

The US has experienced huge breaches of consumer data the last few years, especially last year during the emergence of evolving remote work solutions. The most famous example in recent memory is the Financial Technology, or FinTech, company Equifax. They experienced a data breach in 2017. The breach compromised the personal financial information and social security numbers of more than 146 million people.

FinTech gives consumers access to mobile banking, personal financial data and other services. However, since FinTech is so recent, it doesn’t have a regulatory framework yet. In the US, for example, in the mobile payment industry there are eight federal agencies with minor oversight over finance. Moreover, all 50 states have their own rules. It’s a very different story for Financial organizations and as we’ve seen above, for good reason.

As we’ve seen, lacking a regulatory framework impacts more than just a financial firm. It puts consumers at risk. In the financial industry, achieving regulatory compliance should be the focus for financial institutions big and small.

Cloud Security and Compliance

For a financial firm, credibility is everything. No organization wants to be fined, shamed or, worst of all, left behind by clients. Therefore, firms need to understand the challenges ahead to achieve compliance. Compliance is one of the biggest reasons financial firms are skeptical about engaging in a cloud strategy. However, once you understand how compliance is achieved in the cloud, the transition won’t seem so daunting.

Cyber Threats

As mentioned above, cyber security threats are sophisticated and aimed at getting your firm’s information. Hackers use a variety of methods to compromise your infrastructure for financial gain.  You can’t discuss cloud compliance without mentioning cloud security. As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile it gets easier to attack organizations operating on insecure networks. As a result ransomware is the most common attacks and is now a $2 billion- per-year industry.

One important thing to keep in mind

One of the main concerns that come up when considering financial cloud compliance is that customers don’t manage their own IT infrastructure.

That’s why it’s important to stress the fact that cloud compliance is a two way street. Managed IT service providers have a contractual obligation to their clients but clients must rely on best practices and regulations to look out for their interests as well.  In other words, a specific provider, be SaaS or HaaS will offer certain compliance and security features, but it’s up to the client to responsibly implement those features. With that said, we move on to the features themselves.

FinTech Compliance Cloud Computing Statistics

What’s Covered by a Financial Cloud provider?

It depends. Since the every cloud provider differs in their services and the way they present information, CPA’s and financial companies should review each cloud option carefully. That means choosing the appropriate cloud provider. Like shoes, cloud providers are not a one-size-fits-all.

Things to look out for when choosing a cloud provider:

1) What data will be stored in the cloud and what will remain in house. Why?

2) Where the data will be stored. Some providers don’t give you this information.

3) Service Level Agreement (SLA). Due to the compliance and regulations standards in the financial services industry, your firm might have to carefully review the types of services the provider offers and which align with your needs.

4) Encrypting Data. Keeping with compliance standards means encrypting sensitive data to protect it.

5) Systems & access controls. Data security is a big compliance mandate. You should know who at your firm has access to what data and what your cloud provider has access to as well.

Regulations and Guidelines

The important thing is that a firm become aware of the regulatory policies and procedures it’s expected to comply with. The Financial Cloud provider should have documentary records of how they plan to meet compliance in the cloud.

The GLBA ( Gramm- Leach- Bliley Act) and the SOX (Sarbanes- Oxley) Act are two main pieces of legislation that deal with the storage and maintenance of information within a financial institution. Therefore, to help with compliance a cloud provider should share information and supply your firm with access to necessary documentation.

You can learn more in Nerds Support’s white paper on compliance which details the importance of maintaining data compliance.

Conclusion

Whether your firm chooses a private cloud or public cloud, compliance guidelines must be met to ensure optimal security. Cloud service providers and financial organizations should continue to improve their processes. Otherwise, your organization will be penalized or even breached. The data migrated from a firm to the cloud is valuable and entrusted to you by your clients. And when you mishandle that data, you run the risk of losing everything.

If you’d like to read more about how your financial or wealth management company can use the cloud to innovate, check out our page on IT Support for Financial Firms.

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Top 5 Vulnerabilities Accounting Firms Face

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It seems like every other day now institutions big and small are experiencing some form of cyberattack. With the growing emergence of remote work solutions last year, businesses had to adapt to the need for flexibility for the their teams. Unfortunately, this came with a lot of security concerns about vulnerabilities. Local governments, banking institutions, tech and networking companies have all undergone some sort of cyber breach. However, accounting firms are likelier than other businesses to fall victim to a cyberattack due to the wealth of sensitive client information they store in order to conduct business.

Since cybercriminals are always exploiting vulnerabilities and finding new malware to access financial information of accounting clients, it’s important to understand cyber threats your firm faces in 2020. So when an accountant thinks about cyber risks they’re susceptible to they think about attacks from outside the firm. Unfortunately, the cyber threats that could negatively impact the firm are ones that firms are responsible for. The good news is they can be prevented.

Here are five  main vulnerabilities CPA’s face today.

Why are CPA Employees at the Root of a Data Breach?

1) Human Error

Human error is the leading cause of accounting mistakes and it’s also the leading cause of cyber security threats. 90 percent of data breaches are caused by human error, according to a study by Kaspersky.

Bring your own device (BYOD) culture puts financial firms at risk when accountants neglect to check their network security. If an accountant has sensitive data on their personal device and decides to go to a coffee shop like Starbucks, it’s possible that a hacker can access that information because the user’s connected to a vulnerable, public wifi network.

Solution

Establish strict guidelines to limit the use of personal devices when handling accounts and client data.

2) Weak Passwords

Among the most common mistakes accounting professionals make is setting up weak passwords for accounts. Accountants should create separate passwords for their email, applications, and systems according to best practices. The reality is accountants, like many other people, tend to use the same password for all three. As a result, they make a hacker’s job much easier.

Passwords are a lot like keys. Imagine if you had one key for your house, your car and your business.  All anyone has to do to ruin your life is get hold of that key. Now, lets push this analogy even further. Imagine that same universal key. Not only does it provide access to all these valuable things but every night before you go to bed you leave it under a flowerpot outside for safe keeping. It might not be as obvious as leaving it out in the open, but it wouldn’t take long to find.

That is exactly what accountants do online. They create passwords that are easy for them to remember. Passwords are often anniversary dates, names of pets or loved ones, or the schools they studied in. Like the key in the flowerpot, a thief might not know exactly where it’s is hidden, but after some snooping around and persistence, they’d find it.

Social Media is a Hackers’ Greatest Tool

In today’s world of social media and online communication, personal information is available to everyone willing to look for it. A cyber criminal just needs to do a minimum amount of work looking through social media accounts to find anniversary dates, names of pets or loved ones, and the schools a target studied in.

That’s not to say accountants should rid themselves of all social media and eliminate their online presence. That’s a very extreme approach and, more importantly, is impossible. We shop online, we bank online, we purchase food online, we buy tickets online. All these things create a profile of who you are and can be leveraged to gain access to your accounts.

Solution

It is essential for accountants to set strong passwords for all their accounts. What are strong passwords? A strong password is a combination of letters (capital and lowercase), special characters like punctuation marks, and numbers or numerals. Stay away from passwords relating to your personal life as often as possible. A hacker will use whatever information they can to infiltrate a firm.

To avoid this firms should consider simple security methods like having users change their passwords monthly or at least quarterly and limit access through mobile devices. Also using multi-factor authentication software when accessing accounts can prevent breaches.

Accounting Firm Scams Vulnerabilities Statistics

3) Phishing

This leads me to the next cybersecurity danger CPA’s face: Phishing. Phishing emails are used to manipulate the reader to click on a link or attachment infected with malware or a virus. They are a form of social engineering. Whether  you’re a large firm or small you’re vulnerable because statistics are on the hacker’s side.  All it takes is one successful attempt to access the firm’s data. In other words, they only need to trick one employee to access the firm’s data.

Phishing attacks a varied and wide-ranging. They can come in the form of a credit card alert, a notice from a non-profit, a package shipment delay and others. However, now that there’s more awareness of phishing scams, scammers adapted to make attacks even more believable by hyper focusing on a specific target.

A target phishing email is known as spear phishing. Cybercriminals use everything they can find on the target to legitimize the email. They’ll make references to people in your life, places you’ve lived in, things that you’ve done to give you a false sense of security. For example, if you get an email from a store you’ve shopped at offering you deals on products you’re likely to buy, you’re likelier to open the email without question.

Avoiding spear phishing attacks means having the proper securities in place and training personnel to create a security first culture. Businesses can use phishing simulations to train accountants to recognize them also.

4) Malware

Malware is installed through a phishing email attachment or link to an infected web page. The scary thing about malware is that it can stay dormant for weeks or even months before it’s used to steal information or take over systems. There are even ways to purchase malware online through the dark web. In other words, cyber criminals no longer need to be tech savvy to deploy malware. They can be anyone.

Solution

Since Malware is installed through social engineering, the solutions are the same.  Accounting firms should have protocols in place to alert IT personnel when a request comes in through email. Managed Service providers, like Nerds Support, have alert system that notifies systems engineers of potentially fraudulent emails.

Our e-book goes into more detail on the benefits of e-mail and spam security services.

5) Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is relatively new and unlike malware attacks, its goal is to mine cryptocurrencies on behalf of the hacker by using the victim’s devices. They gain access to the devices by using phishing techniques. They imbed crypto mining malware in popular websites in the form of free browser extensions.

Crypto currencies are valuable to hackers because they’re untraceable and can be used for purchase and exchange on the dark web. Furthermore, the attractive thing about cryptojacking is that it runs secretly and can go undetected for a long time. And since nothing gets stolen or encrypted, there’s little incentive to do anything about it.

 Solution

Other than training firms should implement endpoint protection/antivirus software that detect crypto miners. IT support should create a continuity strategy in case of an attack.  Another thing you can do is keep track and maintain browser extensions.

Conclusion

An October 13 story by CNBC reported that Cyberattacks cost small companies $200,000 on average. 60% of the businesses attacked go out of business within six months. Accounting firms are among the most targeted types of businesses today. Moreover, cyber crime has become the fastest growing type of crime costing businesses 5.2 trillion worldwide in the next five years.

Pandora’s box has been opened and now more than ever CPA’s cannot afford to take unnecessary risks. Adopting strategies and continuity plans to limit the impact of cyberattacks and phishing scams is key.

P.S. Cloud accounting is a growing field and provides unique solutions to many of these problems. Visit our page on IT Support for Accountants to learn more about how IT solutions could give your CPA firm the security and advantage it deserves to stay competitive.

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Social Engineering Serious Threat

What Is Social Engineering?

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Social Engineering

The threat of social engineering scams has grown more than ever due to so many business employees working remotely out of the office, and social engineering comes in many forms. The most commonly spoken about is phishing but it gets much more intricate than that. We know about the hackers that use their technical skills to access and infiltrate a hapless victim’s computer and steal sensitive data.

There are other types of cybercriminals, however, who use techniques to undermine their victim’s cyber defenses. They ‘re called social engineers and they exploit the greatest liability in any and every industry: human beings. They use social media, phone calls and emails to trick people into willingly giving them valuable or desired information.

You may have heard stories of people getting calls offering credit card deals or one-time promotions. They try to take their targets information by claiming to be a representative of this or that company and requiring you to give them credit card information. This is social engineering.

In this article, we’ll focus on the most common types of social engineering attacks used to target victims into divulging information.

Scareware

Scareware involves victims being flooded with false emails and threatening notifications. Users are made to believe their computers are infected with malware or viruses, which encourages them to download software that infects the user’s computer with malware and viruses. Other names for scareware include deception software, fraudware and deception software.

Some of you could have encountered scareware at some point. They come in the forms of banner ads or pop ups that warn you about having an infected computer. It offers to install the software for you and direct you to a malware-infected site where your computer becomes vulnerable.

It can even spread through spam email so be weary of the messages you open.

Worm Attacks

In the past worm attacks have exploited the philosophy behind scareware, aiming to attract user attention to a malicious link or file. Worms were used most in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s but it’s still important to be aware of how they were so successful.

In 2000, the “Iloveyou” worm was spread in email attachments that managed to infect tens of millions of windows computers throughout the US. It started in the Philippines and spread to the west via corporate email systems, causing an estimated 5.5-8.7 billion in damages.

Victims received an email inviting them to open a love letter. When they opened the file, the worm copied itself to all the contacts in victim’s address book. Notice, social engineering is about manipulating human emotion to gain advantage over someone and their information.

Malware links, as mentioned above, contain provocative words or graphics that compel you to open them, bypassing any anti-virus filters your mail could have.

Baiting

Baiting is what it sounds like, baiting the victim by appealing to greed or personal interests. This is particularly insidious because it often discourages the victim from reporting an attack. An unsuspecting user will read an email offering fake deals and shortcuts like free internet or other illegal benefits.

When these emails are opened, the trojan virus attached to the email or file corrupts the computer and encrypts the computer or spreads further through the entire system.

The victim will most likely be too embarrassed to disclose their reasons for opening the email in the first place, so it goes unreported.

A perfect example of this technique was when a trojan virus was sent to the corporate email addresses of employees in the form of a recruitment website. The criminals knew that the employees would be reluctant to tell their employers they were infected with a virus while looking for other jobs.

This type of attack isn’t limited to email, either. Cyber criminals have also used USBs infected with viruses also. The USBs are left lying around and all it takes is one person curious enough to plug it into their machine to ruin everything.

Pretexting

Pretexting is a social engineering technique that uses cleverly developed lies and deceptions to obtain information. In the case of pretexting, it’s usually done through the phone as opposed to online. The attacker will pose as an important figure, perhaps a CEO of an IT company, or a vender and use that as a pretext to gain desired information from the victim or victims.

This also requires the social engineer to develop a friendship with the victim through this impersonation. The impostor asks the target a series of questions as an authority figure, lulling the victim into a false sense of security.

The key in pretexting is manufacturing a scenario that the social engineer uses to engage their victim. A famous case dates to the 1970’s when Jerry N. Schneider used old invoices and manuals obtained by scavenging trash to start a profitable business. He got the invoices by looking through the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph dumpsters. He then used that information to acquire new telephone equipment posing as high-ranking member of the company and sold it back to PTT through his own company.

Phishing

Phishing is the most common type of social engineering scheme. The attacker creates a fake version of an existing website of a highly regarded or renowned company and sends the link to targets through email or social media. The reason it’s so low on the list is because it’s been discussed at length in other blogs.

Vishing

As we’ve discussed, social engineers don’t always use the internet to gather information. Vishing is the use of Interactive Voice Response IVR to trick their target. They attach the IVR to a toll free number and trick people into calling that number and enter their information.

Tailgating

Tailgating is when a person uses an authorized person to gain access to a restricted area where some form of identification is required to get through.

This doesn’t work with large companies with advanced security features that require bio-metric scanning, for example, to get into the building.

What tends to happen is, the social engineer impersonates a delivery driver and when an employee is entering the building the person passing as a driver will quickly ask the employee to  hold the door so that they might make it through. This occurs more often in smaller sized businesses that have comparatively lax security.

Quid Pro Quo

Quid pro quo attacks offer benefits in exchange for information. The most common type of quid pro quo attack involves impostors pretending to be IT service providers and make direct calls to as many members of a company as possible. These criminals offer their IT expertise to all their targets and ask the victim to disable their antivirus program to fix whatever issue present at the time.

 

Social Engineering Statistics

Preventing Social Engineering Attacks

Now that we’ve discussed the types of social engineering techniques, you might be wondering how to defend against these types of attacks. If you’ve made it this far then congratulations you’ve taken the first step, which is knowing about them.

With the emergence of smartphone technology, which puts powerful computers in the hands of so many people, information is very easy to come by. Unlike the days of Mr. Schneider, you don’t have to peruse through company dumpsters to access valuable data.

You, your company, employers or employees need to be more conscientious about what is posted online. Whether it be on a website, a social media page or via email.

To keep your devices and accounts safe, it’s important to implement strong passwords and two-factor authentication. Invest in IT, take the necessary measures to add anti-virus software firewalls and the like.

This is by no means a comprehensive overview of all types of social engineering, some are more detailed in nature and varied in scope. Tactics are changing with technology and cyber attacks are becoming more and more laser focused on specific targets. Instead of going for a large pool of potential targets, the social engineers and cyber criminals will go for one or two individuals. They gather such specific information that distinguishing a phishing scam from a legitimate email is getting harder and harder.

Getting help from an IT service provider you can trust might mitigate the risks of falling for any one of these tricks.

For more information on phishing and other social engineering tactics, visit our website or call us for more information.

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CPA Firms Data Cloud Protection

How CPA Firms Benefit from Miami Data Protection

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All CPA firms have sensitive data that should they fall into the hands of cyber attackers, would be a disaster for their business. It could be anything from important personal files and client data, to product information and financial transactions. For that reason, data protection should be a serious consideration for any company. Proper data protection with managed services should guard your firm’s data while making it available to employees who need it. Moreover, it should ensure the data remains confidential, especially due to the possible security threat of remote workers operating on non-compliant company devices.

Data is currently the lifeblood of a business. That is why Facebook and Google became the tech giants they are today. The amount of data they have over their users is so valuable, industries depended on them to drive business, develop relationships and predict behaviors.

Imagine if that data were stolen and used for nefarious purposes. Imagine if it were sold on the black market or bought by a third party. You don’t have to be Facebook or Google to appreciate the severity of a situation like this. If your industry fails to protect both client and employee data, this could destroy your business.

Customers have a minimum expectation that your firm or business will keep that data safe. Data governance builds trust and trust builds a business. There are practices that everyone needs to follow to protect important data from breach.

Now more than ever, you find data hacks and attackers everywhere online. 53 percent of companies experienced a cyber-attack in the last year. This was up from 38 percent the previous year. This is why finding the right services that offer data protection in Miami is a good idea. Ransomware and hackers in particular are hitting accounting, the financial services industry and even educational companies all over the world.

Data protection keeps hackers from taking advantage of human errors

Whether you like it or not, human errors can appear from time to time in just about any business. And yes, they can lead to lots of downtime. Hackers will wait for such an error to appear and they will immediately gain access to your business information. If you don’t store your information adequately, hackers will just attack your business, and that can lead to a huge set of problems in the long term.

Training

This is such a huge issue that government regulations are now in place that make data governance a requirement. An important component of safety measures is security awareness training. Employees need to understand the importance of data security and procedures.

Online Safety

Our online activities reveal aspects of our daily life. What we search, where we enter our names, home address, and phone numbers. Facts about our education, our shopping habits, all of these things are recorded on the internet.

The amount of information that can be found on the internet is staggering. People expose their private lives online on a regular basis and that means these details can be exploited to gain access to employee information at work.

Data protection keeps hackers from taking advantage of human errors.  There are three main human errors that cyber attackers leverage to gain sensitive data:

Error 1: Phishing

Phishing and pretexting account for 93 percent of social related breaches, and email attacks are the most common.
The biggest mistake companies make is to neglect cyber until an attack or breach occurs. What every financial organization, accounting firm, and any business with sensitive data needs to do is create a security focused culture. Taking the time to address important warnings and issues in brief meetings or short five minute videos can give your business a huge advantage over cyber criminals.

Error 2: Poor passwords

81 percent of company data breaches are due to weak passwords. That’s because people recycle the same passwords across their various online accounts. Not only do people use the same passwords, but they continue to use those passwords as long as possible until it they’re told to change it by an IT department or affected by a cyber-attack. Businesses need to take an active role in helping their staff develop password good password hygiene. The reason many people use reuse these passwords are fear of forgetting. In fact, it was the number one reason for reuse. 61 percent of users admitted this in a poll by Lastpass.

There are password manager software applications that collect data and store it in encrypted databases. Nerds Support uses password expiration tools that instructs users to change their password every 30 days.

Error 3: Unauthorized access to devices

Although  industries  have become more mobile through smartphone technology, tablets and laptops, companies still issue devices to their employees. Over half of working adults allow friends and family to access employer-issued devices at home. Furthermore, it’s possible for employees to download malware that could gain access to important data and applications.
Implementing security controls on devices like two factor authentication and password protection is necessary in this case to avoid these risks. Also, introducing a thorough and comprehensive information security plan that addresses such concerns will lead to a more cyber secure culture within the workplace.

This is especially important for accounting firms due to the sensitive nature of their data. Financial firms are also vulnerable to these types of human error and critically impact the business. Nerd Support’s cloud accounting technology mitigates these risks by implementing rigid compliance centered practices.

Data protection Safeguards Against Breaches

Daily data backups, storing your data in an undisclosed location and taking the security measures mentioned above can go a long way. Data protection needs to be a top priority for all industries, because not only will you lose data, you’ll lose trust and eventually clients.

 

CPA Firms Data Protection Statistics

 

Daily data backups, storing your data in an undisclosed location and taking the security measures mentioned above can go a long way. Data protection needs to be a top priority for all industries, because not only will you lose data, you’ll lose trust and eventually clients.

Data Protection saves you money

The average total cost of a data breach is 3.92 million US dollars, according to extensive study by the Ponemon Institute. The average size of that data breach is 25, 575 records. In other words, 25,575 records are stolen on average whenever there is a data breach. Having strong protections is not a luxury, it’s a necessary investment. Most companies don’t realize this until a breach has taken place. The true financial impact is immeasurable when you consider future losses due loss of trust, credibility as well as the fines and fees.

Data protection keeps your company in compliance with the law

All businesses must safeguard their data. In Florida it’s important to remain compliant with the Florida information protection act of 2014. It’s a lot easier to avoid any potential lawsuits this way too. And, the most important thing, this way you can create powerful business relationships with each client.

By following compliance standards many of the vulnerabilities associated with human error are eliminated entirely. So you need to find IT solutions that take compliance not only into consideration but make compliance the basis for those solutions.

For accounting, it’s GAAP compliance standards that should be met. In the case of financial services, using FINRA approved cloud storage services is key.

What Happens When Data Protection is Underestimated?

There were huge data breaches in government run facilities in the past year. Ecuador was victim to a data breach that compromised the information of up to 20 million people. This included adults and children, dead and alive. To give you a sense of scale, Ecuador has a population of 16 million people. These attacks are only getting worse as hackers expose long neglected security weaknesses.

If you want to make sure that your company data is safe, contact Nerds Support for more information. Our dedicated data protection services team can give you a free consultation to discuss your industry and compliance needs.

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Hurricane destroying a business with no backup data, files, and continuity plan.

How to Prepare your Business for a Hurricane

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ACCUweather, which provides global forecasting services,  predicted 12-14 storms in 2019. Of those, only about two to three strengthen enough to become a major storm (category 3-5). In 2020, hurricane season is projected to be “extremely active”. A research team at Colorado State University predicts 24 named storms, 12 total hurricanes and 5 major hurricanes.

It’s important that business owners understand what they can do to protect themselves and their workplace.

Preparing Your Business For A Hurricane

Storms can devastate homes, families and entire communities. For small businesses, recovering from hurricanes and tropical storms can take years. Sometimes, they don’t recover at all. The Golden Corral franchise restaurant in New Orleans suffered considerable damage after Hurricane Katrina.

Natural disasters can negatively affect businesses in a variety of ways. There are other kinds of disasters called operational disasters, which occur when a business loses an important manager or director, the conditions within the business become far too unfavorable to maintain productivity. Large and small businesses deal with the effects of disasters differently, mainly because larger businesses have more resources at their disposal for restoring their operations.

Create A Business Continuity Plan

The first thing to do before anything else is to create a business continuity plan as soon as possible, preferably long before hurricane season starts. A continuity plan can greatly improve your chances of a timely recovery after a hurricane, storm or any other natural disaster. Plans include detailed instruction for restoring operations after a natural disaster. Protect the components that are most responsible for sustaining operations first. It is important to make an appraisal of key elements within your business to really determine how you proceed.

51% of small businesses surveyed said that damage from a hurricane would be “extremely damaging” to their operation, according to survey by Womply. This is due to the damage that a hurricane deals to business assets during a storm. Networks, technology, equipment and data are among the litany of assets that are at risk during a hurricane. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a Continuity Resource tool kit which gives businesses insight into how to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and make quick recoveries from operational disruptions.

Back-Up Your Data As Soon as You Can

Where are your assets located? A software company, for example, may have servers that operate within a warehouse away from the office. In that case you would have to ensure there are protections put in place to secure them. Back-up your data as soon as possible. Make sure your data is secured off-site.

For example, Nerds Support data center is located in downtown Miami in a secure building that can withstand a category 5 hurricane. If a catastrophic hurricane, more powerful than a CAT 5 were to hit, the servers would be moved to another secure location away from danger with the uttermost care. With today’s technology this is easier than ever. Cloud based services function as a way to secure data and ensure functionality for businesses so that they can work remotely or recuperate necessary digital tools to continue their operation.

Establish A Plan of Communications

Hurricanes can severely impact communication with staff. That’s why it’s necessary to plan accordingly should a storm cut off your lines of communications. 

  • Build a reliable communication tree between you and personnel. Even you’re working remotely, power outages can create a chaotic environment for your business processes. Communication is essential to keep a business running during or after a storm. Also communicating after the storm will give you insight into what employees are dealing with. That will help you manage your business more effectively overall and resolve these issues appropriately. 
  • Prepare for interrupted computer lines, cell phones, emails and landlines. Give employees resources where they can learn about closures and updates regarding the storm. Share as much as possible so that no one member of your team knows more or less than another.

No Office No Limitations: Working From Home is No Hassle At All

You can work from a different location regardless of the weather conditions or circumstances. Your workforce will also need to adapt and work with you to expedite recovery, but that will necessitate effective leadership on your part as a business owner. Many companies now have a mobile workforce that often have to move from the office to the field or work remotely from another location.

You need a system of communication that allows you to access the bulk of your workforce if not everyone simultaneously. It is important that you keep track of everyone’s location in real time and establish a plan of action. Look into who within your workforce travels most frequently and where they travel to. Establishing clear communication from within your team is essential to preserving organization and even moral. Confusion and miscommunication can lead to exacerbate tension and anxiety and create a perception that the storm is more severe that it is.

Download our FREE e-book for more information on how to prepare for a storm and how to weather any natural disaster this hurricane season.  Or contact us today at 305-551-2009, there’s still time to get prepared.

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