Modern intranets can be a great communication tool to keep employees connected and engaged while working remotely. They act as a portal to share important internal communication, such as business news and announcements, HR policies or forms, and in recent years have evolved to enable employees to collaborate more effectively.
Since intranets usually contain sensitive employee and business data, like any digital tool, security should be a high priority. Managing and protecting your intranet and your business data should not only focus on external threats, but also on your biggest internal threats - your employees.
Here are 4 tips to ensure your organisations intranet is secure.
Tip 1. Implement a cybersecurity policy
While your organisation may already have an IT (Information Technology) usage or Cybersecurity policy in place, many have not been reviewed and/or updated to include considerations for remote workers. Take the time to review your policies (or leave it to the experts) to make sure it reflects employee expectations while working from home, approved devices and technologies (such as usage of your intranet), and a clear process to immediately report potential breaches or cyber risks.
Tip 2. Apply permissions to limit access to sensitive data
An important step in establishing intranet security best practices is applying permissions to limit access to sensitive data only to those who require it. Setting up permission groups within and applying them to different levels within your organisation will not only limit access, but reduce the chance of a breach of sensitive data.
A secure intranet should allow admins to create different permissions to enable or disable access to document areas, or individual files. This ensures that your employees have access to the correct information and business data they need, and protects the sensitive data that they don't.
In addition, applications such as Microsoft SharePoint offer enterprise level security, and streamline the action of applying permission to the data stored in your intranet.
Tip 3. Keep company computers updated
Software providers continually release updates as they identify emerging threats and security vulnerabilities. For example, Microsoft issues dozens of updates every month for its digital workplace tools. However, organisations must install these updates or 'patches' in order to stay protected. We recommend working with your technology provider to ensure all your patches and updates are automated so that no updates, particularly to your digital tools such as your intranet, are missed.
Tip 4. Provide Staff with Cybersecurity Awareness Training
Employee's should not only be maintaining the security of your intranet site, but also the broader cybersecurity of your organisations. By providing your employees with Cybersecurity Awareness Training, you'll be giving your organisations the knowledge and tools they need in order to identify and respond to potential cyber threats and breaches.
The purpose of Cybersecurity Awareness Training is to educate your employees about the cyber threats they may be subjected to every day.
We urge all organisations to remain vigilant, by reviewing these critical COVID-19 cybersecurity considerations to ensure their employees are adhering to cybersecurity best practices.
How Diamond IT can help improve the security of your intranet
Managing intranet security for remote workers doesn’t have to be complicated. Diamond IT are proud partners of Powell 365, an intranet solution that helps you leverage the best of Office 365 security solutions with multi-factor authentication, automatic logout, governance, and more.
Our Business Technology Managers (BTMs) and Technology Consulting team are specialists in improving your internal cybersecurity, and excel in developing custom software solutions. Contact our team on 1300 307 907 today.
