2 Most Important Chat Features for Any Business
According to IBM’s Security report, the average cost for an Indian company due to a security breach was Rs 14 crore in 2020. Businesses of all sizes are affected by such an event, with customer details, patient records, employee, faculty & student data, and insurance and financial datasets being especially at risk. In fact, leaks on SMEs and MSMEs are higher given the lack of focus and awareness on data privacy in this sector.
One of the biggest causes of data breaches in India were from human errors (21%). And it is expected that with the usage of consumer messaging applications and software, data compromise from human errors will only become more common and difficult to control.
Despite many wake-up calls, only a few small and medium-sized companies have been able to put in practice measures to safeguard data, with many lacking personnel to handle cybersecurity.
There are three key reasons why a secure communication channel is a must for every business:
To instill confidence in customers who do business with the company
To protect internal discussions from the public
To protect the company’s intellectual property
If your communication channels are to be protected against such hacks, then your infrastructure MUST have these 2 features:
- Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Authentication and authorization play an important role in ensuring secure communication between the workforce, customers, and clients associated with your company. Authentication first confirms the identities of the communicating individuals and then grants a different level of access to an application.
- Authentication: this is the step that validates the identity of a user and is traditionally done by giving users (workforce) a username and password
- Authorization: once the user is authenticated, the authorization step determines what the user can do or see when they signed in (for example department-specific files) and who they can communicate with. Such settings are changeable only by the admins & owners, and not by the users
A recent survey by a leading cybersecurity company established that 63% of Indian businesses worry about data hacks due to staff error. This makes authorization even more important, limiting possible careless actions that can be performed by an individual.
2. End-to-End Encryption (E2E)
Businesses share internal data over messaging apps many times per day. Such a practice has led to a new set of problems and opportunities for data breaches, making End-to-End Encryption (E2E), the strongest form of encryption, essential for secure communications.
So, how does E2E work? Put simply, it is a process of applying encryption to message & files on one device such that only the device to which it is sent can decrypt it. The keys cannot be reused to view any other message, dramatically reducing the security risks.
Zoom until recently wasn’t end-to-end encrypted. Cell phones, Google Hangouts, and Skype calls, for example, are not E2E. Similarly, Telegram does not provide E2E for group chat and one to one chat, meaning that in theory, it has access to the contents of the messages sent via its platform (while its secret chat option offers E2E).
Secure communication channels are no longer just a tool for your organization but have become a kind of insurance to protect your company from illegal activities and protect it against legal obligations.
According to IBM’s Security report, the average cost for an Indian company due to a security breach was Rs 14 crore in 2020. Businesses of all sizes are affected by such an event, with customer details, patient records, employee, faculty & student data, and insurance and financial datasets being especially at risk. In fact, leaks on SMEs and MSMEs are higher given the lack of focus and awareness on data privacy in this sector.
One of the biggest causes of data breaches in India were from human errors (21%). And it is expected that with the usage of consumer messaging applications and software, data compromise from human errors will only become more common and difficult to control.
Despite many wake-up calls, only a few small and medium-sized companies have been able to put in practice measures to safeguard data, with many lacking personnel to handle cybersecurity.
There are three key reasons why a secure communication channel is a must for every business:
To instill confidence in customers who do business with the company
To protect internal discussions from the public
To protect the company’s intellectual property
If your communication channels are to be protected against such hacks, then your infrastructure MUST have these 2 features:
- Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Authentication and authorization play an important role in ensuring secure communication between the workforce, customers, and clients associated with your company. Authentication first confirms the identities of the communicating individuals and then grants a different level of access to an application.
- Authentication: this is the step that validates the identity of a user and is traditionally done by giving users (workforce) a username and password
- Authorization: once the user is authenticated, the authorization step determines what the user can do or see when they signed in (for example department-specific files) and who they can communicate with. Such settings are changeable only by the admins & owners, and not by the users
A recent survey by a leading cybersecurity company established that 63% of Indian businesses worry about data hacks due to staff error. This makes authorization even more important, limiting possible careless actions that can be performed by an individual.
2. End-to-End Encryption (E2E)
Businesses share internal data over messaging apps many times per day. Such a practice has led to a new set of problems and opportunities for data breaches, making End-to-End Encryption (E2E), the strongest form of encryption, essential for secure communications.
So, how does E2E work? Put simply, it is a process of applying encryption to message & files on one device such that only the device to which it is sent can decrypt it. The keys cannot be reused to view any other message, dramatically reducing the security risks.
Zoom until recently wasn’t end-to-end encrypted. Cell phones, Google Hangouts, and Skype calls, for example, are not E2E. Similarly, Telegram does not provide E2E for group chat and one to one chat, meaning that in theory, it has access to the contents of the messages sent via its platform (while its secret chat option offers E2E).
Secure communication channels are no longer just a tool for your organization but have become a kind of insurance to protect your company from illegal activities and protect it against legal obligations.