Automate business processes to upgrade your cybersecurity

Automate business processes to upgrade your cybersecurity

Cybersecurity has become increasingly important to businesses of all sizes. If you don’t put in the necessary defences and precautions, you can leave your company open to sophisticated attacks by cybercriminals. This might suggest that you have to spend significantly on cybersecurity measures - and it is true that you should invest. But don’t forget that prevention is often better than cure. 

There are many things that you can do within your business that tangentially improve your cybersecurity - and a great example is business process automation. This involves taking repetitive manual jobs usually performed by humans, and having them completed by software. But how does this help you from the perspective of your cybersecurity? Here we take a look. 

Minimise human error-based cybercrime

Many cyberattacks rely on human error for their success. For example, business email compromise attacks could be almost completely eliminated with automated invoice processing.

“Business email compromise attacks trick workers in accounts departments to redirect payments or invoices to a different account,” explains Richard Entecott of Document Options “hackers compromise a genuine email address, then use that email to send an update to an invoice to someone in the accounts team.

If they believe the email is genuine, they might simply update the information and process the invoice. Whereas, if invoices are processed via business process automation, there is no opportunity for a member of staff to be tricked”.  

Reduce insider attacks

With key parts of processes automated, there are fewer opportunities for employees and ex-employees to carry out or be the cause of cyberattacks. We often think of insider attacks as something that is carried out by team members for their own gain, however, this is not always the case.

“Contrary to popular belief, insider threats aren’t always malicious in nature,” says Simon Monahan, Product Marketing Director at cybersecurity specialists Redscan “most insider threat definitions encompass any action from an insider that could negatively impact an organisation, and in many cases these actions are borne out of negligence rather than malice”. 

A benefit to compliance

Compliance has become increasingly important to businesses, especially with regard to regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other data safety measures. Businesses must minimise the risk of data being stolen by criminals in order to remain compliant. 

When you automate processes with software you are necessarily taking private data away from the eyes of human staff. If staff never come into contact with the data and there is no access to customer data through staff accounts this actually removes a reason to hack from a cybercriminal’s perspective. 

Final thoughts

There are many good reasons to consider business process automation for your business - these include stronger efficiency, greater productivity and cost savings - so, it might seem like cybersecurity is only an afterthought. In fact, as businesses are forced to deal with increasingly sophisticated cybercriminal tactics, the security benefits that can be gained through process automation become all the more important.