Owning or managing a recruiting agency comes with so many opportunities. But for every opportunity, you face a dozen challenges.

Among the greatest of those challenges is cybersecurity, and for a recruiting agency, personal data protection is incredibly important.

If you’re not sure where to start, you’re in the right place. Below, we’ll discuss the top cybersecurity tips for recruiting agencies.

Security Best Practices

Staffing agencies certainly face unique challenges in the world of cybersecurity, but not everything pertains to the industry. The same essential security measures that work for other businesses also apply to recruiting firms and staffing agencies, so that’s the best place to start.

Design a segmented network that mitigates risk if an intrusion occurs. Use firewalls and antivirus software. Stay on top of software updates as they often include security patches.

Perhaps most importantly, modernize your login authentication. Implement strong passwords by utilizing more characters and a wider variety of characters. In fact, standardizing the use of password managers makes it much easier to use a truly strong password for every account. At the same time, each password can be unique, so if one is compromised, it doesn’t create a security risk for other accounts.

In addition, multi-factor authentication (MFA) is important to implement. The additional security MFA provides is significant. Although it may be an additional login step, it’s quick. And according to Microsoft MFA can prevent 99.9% of attacks on your accounts. .

While you deploy essential security tools, be sure to work closely with your IT support provider in Omaha. They can help you prioritize security measures to get you as secure as possible as quickly as possible.

Prioritize Data Protection

Now, with the basic security elements in place,  let’s focus on specific security issues facing recruiting agencies.

Recruiters handle more sensitive and personal information than most fields of work, and that data remains on the system while in active use. Protecting that data should always be a top priority..

To that effort, remember these data protection concepts.

First, strict access policies need to be in place. It’s not enough to restrict data access to users within the agency. In most cases, employees at the agency should not have access to all of the data stored by the company. Only give users access to the things they specifically need in their role. Network segmentation (mentioned in the previous section) proves invaluable for data protection. Do not store all of your data in one place, and do not create direct networking highways between the data stores. Instead, segment the network so that any one intrusion cannot access the whole network. This mitigates fallout considerably.

Don’t cut corners on your data backup systems and processes. The industry standard is to maintain three professional backups of your data: the original, a cloud version, and a local backup. This allows you to recover more quickly and reliably in the event of a security breach or ransomware incident.

Lastly, perform regular security audits and bring in professional expertise from your Lincoln or Omaha managed IT provider. Security protection tools are constantly evolving, and the right IT provider will stay on top of changes, as well as communicate best practices.  

Implement Ongoing Security Training

Ongoing security training may sound like a lot of effort, however it does not have to be when you know what to train and have the right training tools in place. See our additional resources at the bottom of this blog post.

Agency leadership will want to go through the training first in order to encourage other staff to devote time and energy to learning about IT, security, and data. You don’t have to be a verified expert in the topic, but you need to know enough to recognize good security practices.

Whether in Omaha or anywhere else, one of the best ways to spot valuable IT support services is in the  ability of the experts to explain security concepts in relatable and understandable terms. In addition, constant learning helps your team leverage technology security tools within your firm. Is there a CRM platform that helps you manage prospects data? Do you have secure communication lines for recruiters and clients? Do your different apps integrate with each other? How is the data encrypted?

You can see how answering questions like these informs your security strategy. That’s still not the end. You see, most data breaches involve poor practices from someone within the organization. That means that every member of the agency needs training.

Your IT provider in Omaha or Lincoln can build training and resources to help with that, but company-wide buy-in matters here. You need everyone on board, and you will likely have recurring training to block new threats that emerge. 

Plan and Plan Some More

Cybersecurity is important to plan for and implement in this time of skilled hackers that target industries and specific roles in an organization. You need a strategy to combat these criminals. You need disaster recovery plans as well, in the event a data breach occurs. In fact, you need clear-cut plans for the whole agency to follow to protect the company data and systems on a daily basis

This is where your technology partner and managed IT provider in Omaha shines the most. They can provide strategic planning services that ensure you cover all the bases.

So, think about data, security, and recruiting. What kinds of data do you need to keep in your systems? How long do you need to keep it? Who needs to access what data?

If you can clearly describe how you use technology, and especially how you use data, you can build and implement a security plan that works best for your business.

Create a Remote Work Strategy

Recruiting work lends itself to remote work at a higher rate than many other industries. If you have absolutely no remote work, you can skip this part. Odds are, remote work is important in your agency, and you need a strategy that protects data even when people remotely connect to your IT resources.

The two primary components of remote work security are secure connections and access control. Make certain you address each of these areas.

On top of that, you need to know your remote work principles and policies. What data and applications do remote employees have access to? How are they accessing the information? Through a VPN or public internet connection?  Your remote work policy informs your security strategy, so flesh it out as much as possible as early as possible.

Budget

Every business needs a budget, and modern businesses especially need a cybersecurity budget. For recruiting agencies, it’s crucial to have a well-planned budget that specifically addresses data security and management. Here are some key considerations for enhancing your cybersecurity budget:

• Allocate for Regular Security Audits: Schedule periodic security audits to identify vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with industry standards.
  
• Invest in Advanced Security Tools: Budget for state-of-the-art firewalls, antivirus software, and intrusion detection systems to protect sensitive data.
  
• Employee Training Programs: Allocate funds for ongoing cybersecurity training for all employees to prevent internal security breaches.
  
• Backup Solutions: Ensure you have robust backup solutions in place, including cloud-based and local backups, to quickly recover from potential data loss.
  
• Incident Response Plan: Set aside funds for developing and maintaining an incident response plan, including resources for immediate action during a security breach.
  
• Software and Hardware Updates: Regularly update all software and hardware to the latest versions to protect against known vulnerabilities.
  
• Consulting Services: Budget for consulting services from cybersecurity experts to stay ahead of emerging threats and implement best practices.
  
• Cybersecurity Insurance: Invest in comprehensive cybersecurity insurance to cover potential liabilities and recovery costs in the event of a breach.
  

By earmarking a portion of your budget for these critical areas, you can ensure your recruiting agency remains secure and resilient against cyber threats.

Consider Cybersecurity Business Insurance

This is the last tip! Any company that handles personal data needs to have cybersecurity insurance just for malicious IT attacks.

It's a tough pill to swallow, but perfect security doesn’t exist. Firms that contain more personal data than your average business have a target on their backs.

Cybersecurity insurance can help you with liability issues that are tied to a data breach. Insurance can also help you take the necessary steps to identify how the breach occurred. Your managed IT services provider will help you recover from data backups and remove any viruses or malware in place.

Insurance provides the final layer of protection, and with it, you are in a better position to recover from a cybersecurity incident.

Additional Resources:

• Managed Backups: Why Your Business Needs Them
• 8 Topics Your Employee Cybersecurity Training Needs to Cover
• Ransomware Exposed E-Book