For any company – big or small, the mobile device of a workforce is the weakest security link in a business environment. Whether it is sending a sensitive presentation outside the intended group or sharing office-threads, or taking screenshots of work-chat, all these attempts constitute a serious data leak without the organization being aware.  

With the surge in remote work during COVID-19, the risk for a business of such privacy, legal and reputational leak have increased exponentially. So, if you are allowing the use of WhatsApp or any other consumer messaging app in your organization, then here are five things that you must ensure:  

• Get two separate accounts sanctioned: Work & Personal  

We are repeatedly advised to keep personal and professional life separate. The same holds for an instant messaging channel. Convince employees to use one messaging platform for personal use (WhatsApp) and the other for business use (Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp Business). It will limit increase distraction and mixing of work-related messages with personal conversations in the absence of instruction.  

• Require deletion of sensitive company data regularly  

Spam through unknown chats has been at the center of some of the most notable data breaches in recent years. Not long ago, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ data compromise from his phone represents an instance of how data can be intruded without any use of sophisticated techniques or brute-force hacking. The workforce must be regularly reminded to delete sensitive files residing on their phones after a defined period.   

• Use more of “Admin Only Message” settings  

Conversations in a group over a period become difficult to control and administer. Critical communication often gets overlooked, forgotten, or is seen too late to be relevant. Assigning admins only message settings can be a good method to highlight and keep important information relevant and ‘cut’ the noise.  

• Invest in workforce communication on security:  

Regular communication, especially in SME’s must be designed in a manner that strengthens workforce security posture. This includes making the workforce aware, reminded, and encouraged not to use the same passwords across work and personal accounts, not to forward sensitive information to unauthorized people, but ensuring the least access as possible. 

Productivise: Get Your “Own” Private Messaging App   

At Productivise, we take your security very seriously, allowing you to keep your data within your privately owned or approved servers so that you can communicate without any compromise. 

Launch your own branded app & get going within 10 business days!