For your IT department to function at its best, it will need the cooperation of all the employees it’s going to support. Because the IT department is just one piece that helps your business run efficiently, it needs the support of all the other parts that make your company whole. In certain cases, like ecommerce sites and online stores, they are the most critical piece to the running of your company.
Everyone Must Work Together
This all means that if your business is to run smoothly, every process must run in sync with one another. And that means all your employees must be on board.
To move toward a successful working environment, your employees must:
1. Care About IT Policies
Your IT department will come up with policies that your employees may not like. But, whatever policy they come up with, you will need to accept it and follow it to the letter. This includes policies pertaining to software uploads, file sharing, password encryption and more. Always remember that the weakest link in any IT security system is almost always the user that actually needs it the most.
2. Be Password Savvy
Your staff should be aware of the significance of password security. Since passwords lock access to everything from email to company bank accounts and more, following proper password protocol is crucial for every single employee.
- Make sure passwords aren’t simple, like “1234567” or “Password” or “qwertyuiop”. Hackers always try these first.
- Passwords shouldn’t be stored or written down where anyone can access them.
- Don’t share passwords with one another – it is one person, one login and one password. If someone needs to login to a platform, a new account should be created.
- Regularly change your passwords according to your IT’s specifications – the more they are used, the greater the chance they’ll get hacked.
A password is a very sacred piece of information that only one person should know and use. There is no compromise.
3. Be Email Wary
Phishing is one of the ways hackers fool hapless users into divulging secrets they never intended to share. The modus operandi is to send an email that appears to be from a common company, like Google, and state that the user’s account has been compromised and requires a password change. Unaware, the user then enters the old password into the fake form, opening account access to the sender of the email. If you think you can’t be fooled, just remember governments have been shaken using this simple tactic.
4. Keep Hardware Safe
With more businesses allowing employees to bring their own devices to work, the chances of letting a virus go rampant behind your firewall are increasing substantially. If you have a good antivirus and/or antimalware system in place, your system should be able to handle new devices with ease. But, if after a full day’s work, the employee takes any data home and then gets online, there is a chance that a Trojan or backdoor exploit can easily take over.
Your IT department should recommend security steps, including:
- Not downloading or installing any unsanctioned software
- Never uninstalling security software placed on your computer by administrators
- Logging out and locking screens when leaving your devices
- Always keeping an eye on hardware when you need to be away for a while
You, on the other hand, need to strictly abide by these rules. Again, it is all for the good of the whole business.
5. Remove Unwanted Data
Even with normal everyday use, laptops and servers gather a lot of temporary files over time. Imagine how much bigger the junk data is on a work laptop or computer. Everyone should take time out to delete files no longer in use. A good example is email that you read and just leave in your inbox. You should remember that every single piece of correspondence takes up some disk space. If it isn’t stored on your own device, then there’s a good chance it’s being done so on your corporate server. So, if you don’t need it anymore, you need to delete it.
Stick to the Rules
Again, it can’t be stressed enough that your IT department needs your help! When they work better, you work better. Nobody wants to come to the office, or join a virtual one, and find out the server has crashed, your data has been wiped out and your devices are spewing out all your stored information – business and personal. Lower the risk and keep your data protected as best you can – and here’s to your IT department!
