Protecting a company’s information and communications system is of paramount importance to CIOs. This task has become even more challenging with the exponential growth in the number of cyberattacks over recent years and the development of new ways of working, which offer greater flexibility, but also come with an increased risk of security breaches. In the UK, 31% of businesses are experiencing cybercrime every week!
Faced with these challenges and the high volume of related standards and regulations, how can you be sure that your communications system is sufficiently secure? In the third episode of our video series, we pose this question to Amir Sahranavard, Solutions Engineer at RingCentral, who shares his advice.
Threats to communications security are on the rise
The evolution of the modern workplace means your employees need to be able to work from wherever, using various means of communication, and on any device. As a result, you may be using several different platforms and staff may be required to use their personal devices, both of which increase the risk of security breaches within your communications system.
This can be seen particularly with the uptake in employees working from home, which has become more common following the pandemic. As a consequence, nearly half of companies experienced a data breach or security incident between March and July 2020, certainly due to employees’ lack of focus : 47% cited distraction as the reason for falling for a phishing scam while working from home. (Tessian – Securing the Future of Working)
This makes it imperative to incorporate your communications system security into your overall security strategy.
The benefits of the cloud when it comes to security
One of the advantages brought by the cloud is the pooling of infrastructures and resources. This enhances security, drawing on best practices for protecting data. Moreover, the application of security patches is carried out systematically and immediately, which is not always the case with on-premises systems. Tasks like these are time-consuming, tedious and require human intervention. Due to a lack of time and resources, companies are not always in a position to react quickly in this respect. With a cloud-based unified communications system (or UCaaS, Unified Communications as a Service), regular system upgrades to maintain the highest level of security are undertaken by your provider.
Secure infrastructure, confidentiality and compliance management, and enhanced controls: How should you protect your communications system?
UCaaS systems are newer and more modern than systems like on-premises PBX. They offer advanced features and are extremely simple to use. With RingCentral, for example, you can easily activate end-to-end encryption for your messages at any point if you find yourself discussing confidential topics.
Complying with current standards
When it comes to data privacy, there are lots of regulations that need to be complied with. Information about your customers and your employees may pass through your communications system, so you need to ensure that your system is compliant in every country in which you have a presence.
RingCentral is based on a secure cloud platform with a large range of security and compliance certifications, including SOC 2 and SOC 3 certifications; ISO 27001 and ISO 27017-18; HITRUST certification; and HIPAA and GDPR compliance – to name just the key ones. We have even received the C5 certification from the German Government – a strict standard that is becoming the European benchmark for cloud security.
Ensuring an exceptional level of service
In terms of communications, the availability of your system is another important factor to take into consideration when assessing reliability. With RingCentral, we guarantee an unrivaled availability of 99.999%! This means your system will only be unavailable for a maximum of six minutes per year. This guarantee has a more than positive financial impact on companies’ ROI – Gartner estimates the average cost for system downtime to be £4,528 per minute (excl. tax).
And that was the third episode from our “How to optimise your business communications” video series.
Don’t miss the next episodes!
- Episode #4: How to improve team collaboration and productivity with unified communications and AI
- Episode #5: How to optimise your investment in your communications system
And for those who missed “Simplifying your business communications” Season 1, you can watch it in full here!
Originally published Feb 21, 2024, updated Mar 04, 2024
