Cybersecurity is key for accountants. There is no telling when a cyberattack will occur. If members of your accounting team are not prepared, they may fall victim to cybercrime. At this point, your organisation, its employees, and its customers may suffer the consequences.
Make cyber protection a top priority for your accounting team. Develop a cybersecurity strategy or keep your existing one up to date. And share any cybersecurity insights and recommendations across your organisation. That way, your accountants can work together to protect against current and emerging cyber threats.
Cybersecurity Tips for Accountants
Do not put your accounting and finance systems and data in danger. Here are five tips to help you develop and maintain a best-in-class cybersecurity strategy for your accounting team.
1. Perform a Risk Assessment
Conduct a cybersecurity risk assessment to evaluate your organisation’s ability to defend your systems and data. During your assessment, create an inventory of the devices you use to store and access data. Consider how a cybercriminal may target these devices. It often helps to hire a cybersecurity company to help you with your assessment. This business will be able to identify cyber risks and offer insights on how to address them.
2. Back Up Your Data
Make sure you back up your data. It’s generally a good idea to have one primary backup and two copies of your data. You can maintain on-site and cloud backups as well. Perform data backups regularly, too. This ensures you’ll have quick, easy access to the most up-to-date data if a cybercriminal compromises your system.
3. Encrypt Your Data
Encrypt data across your devices, services, and apps. For extra help with this, partner with a cybersecurity company. This allows you to work with a business that specialises in data encryption. The company can help you encrypt your data to keep it safe from cybercriminals now and in the future.
4. Teach Your Accountants How to Identify Cyberattacks
Offer cybersecurity awareness training to teach your accountants about phishing, malware, and other cyber threats. This training can help these employees identify cyberattacks before they lead to data breaches. Along with providing training, explain how to respond to malicious activity or other issues that indicate a cyberattack may be underway.
5. Establish Cybersecurity Policies
Create data privacy and acceptable use policies for your employees. These policies help prevent data leakage and explain when it’s acceptable to use certain information and systems. In addition, make sure only authorized accountants can access the systems and data they need to do their jobs.
Help Your Accountants Defend Against Cyberattacks
These tips will help your accountants secure your organisation’s systems and data. They can also make a difference relative to talent recruitment and retention.
As you look for top talent, hire accounting and finance professionals who know the ins and outs of cybersecurity. These professionals will do everything they can to protect your systems and data. They may become difference-makers across your organisation as well.
At Elby Professional Recruitment, we make it easy to connect with top accounting and finance talent. To get started, contact us today.
