How to Handle Payroll After a Business Security Breach
October 6, 2017
If you haven’t experienced a security breach in your business yet, that’s great. Older businesses are conditioned to implement protections against physical theft or burglary, but many are still woefully behind the times when it comes to cybersecurity — and that leaves them vulnerable.
If you have experienced a breach, all is not lost. Still, it’s extremely important that you react quickly, especially when it comes to payroll security. If your payroll security is compromised, it can quickly lead to panic, which will only make things worse. Here are some payroll security tips to make sure you are prepared to act fast if a breach does happen.
Have a Cyberattack Response Plan in Place
Know what you will do if a breach happens. Make sure you have a backup stored somewhere safely for computers or systems that a breach may compromise. Make sure you have an investigation plan in place to track hackers who breach your system.
Train Your Employees
If you have had a breach, it could be because your employees did not have the knowledge to prevent it. Many cyberattack tactics are easy to sidestep if you know what to look for, but so many employees have no experience with this kind of attack and so have no idea when they are being victimized.
All employees should be trained on popular phishing scams and should be encouraged to immediately report suspicious emails or any requests for passwords or other sensitive data.
Change Your Passwords
The easiest way for a hacker to breach someone’s system is by finding out the password. For a long time, conventional wisdom said that a strong password was a combination of symbols, numbers and upper and lowercase letters that would be very difficult to figure out. However, this assumed that hackers and the programs they use to decipher passwords think like humans. But they don’t — they think like computers.
The result has been billions of passwords that are hard for humans to remember but easy for malicious programs to hack, which is the opposite of what was intended. Today’s wisdom is to create passwords that are long strings of words, or even full sentences, that make sense to the user but would require years for a computer to crack using brute force.
Back Up Your Payroll
Make sure you have your payroll data and files backed up someplace secure so that, if your current payroll system is breached and goes down, you can keep to the payroll schedule for your employees and avoid panic.
Inform Everyone
As soon as you experience a breach, you should inform any parties that may be affected. Reassure them that you have identified the breach and let them know the response steps you are taking. Trying to cover up a breach will not work and it will shatter employee and consumer confidence when they hear about it through other channels.
Having people try to guess about what has happened will only heighten the panic level. Complete transparency is the only appropriate response.
Hire Professional Payroll Services
If you work with a professional payroll services company, you won’t have to worry about paying your employees on time if someone breaches your system or knocks it out. Plus, you’ll have the added benefit of being able to focus on your business without having to keep close track of who is getting paid, how and when.
If your business operates in south-central Pennsylvania or western Maryland areas, contact BCM Payroll Services, Inc. today for a complete custom payroll services solution with no obligation. Your payroll data will be safely stored on our cloud server for access only by you and whoever you authorize to have it. Protect your payroll with BCM now for total peace of mind.
