For business owners, an accounting firm is where they can find experienced accountants to check and prepare accounting data. But, strangely, external intruders or attackers look at it differently and think of it as a treasure of sensitive financial information of multiple clients, including banking information, tax numbers, and identity documents. This has been proven by the statistics confirming a 300% rise in cybersecurity threats on accounting firms since 2020.
If you are running an accounting firm, you already know accounting security maintenance is more critical than ever before. You must take the proper steps to counteract cybersecurity threats and defend business data and organizational security.
Before we get to the steps to be followed to ensure enhanced accounting security, let’s understand why it is crucial in the first place.
What Makes Accounting Security Improvements So Urgent in 2023?
One of the reasons accounting data is vulnerable is the decision of accounting firms to manage their IT and security infrastructure. The worst part is that many cannot stick to the required infrastructure maintenance and upgrades because of the cost. As a result, you may even find small accounting firms working without security guidance or defensive measures.
In the event of a cyber intrusion, they are not equipped with the tools, technology, or even expertise to protect themselves. When it is about planning for business growth and serving more clients with accounting services, they are always all set. On the other hand, they have no or least valuable answers to the time spent during work hours on preventing cyber threats, training employees against malicious activities, etc.
Indeed, it is essential to keep your clients happy and your team busy to get things done and drive business toward higher profitability. However, this should not be done at the cost of compromised accounting security.
3-Step Process to Improve Accounting Security
No rocket science is involved in making enhancements to the current data security measures, if any. You need to do this:
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Assess where you stand today
You would most likely feel directionless in ensuring accounting security if you do not know what is already in place. For example, if you use desktop accounting software, you might have faced security issues regarding insider threats, technical glitches, or loss of data files because of hardware failure. With this understanding, you first get the idea of what you want to fix: minimum internal intrusion, least technical failure, and ease of data recovery whenever needed.
This takes us to the next step in the process.
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Find out ways to implement security measures.
Once you have a clear idea of what you want for your accounting firm and what it lacks, the next step is to follow ways to get it. Taking the same example above, if insider threat is quite common in your accounting firm, you can add another layer of protection regarding two-factor authentication. Similarly, you can hire a cloud hosting provider to host accounting software and data on the cloud, not locally.
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Take action
By reaching this step, you will know what to do about accounting security and how to ensure that. It is time to plan for the long term and take action. This could be about investing in advanced security measures or switching to accounting software hosting to benefit from multiple security measures under your all-inclusive hosting plan.
Keep an Eye on the Disaster Recovery Angle
Another aspect weakening the accounting security wall is the lack of any disaster recovery plan. Many accounting firms do not invest much in data backup and disaster recovery solutions unless it is too late. Remember that cybersecurity attacks are not the only evil you need to protect the firm’s data. Loss of accounting in a natural disaster can also lead to similar damages.
Again, this is where a comprehensive cloud solution provider can greatly help. Find the one that understands the distinct nature of your industry and offers hosting plans with built-in enterprise-grade security solutions.
Interesting Read: Cloud Disaster Recovery: Importance, How It Works, and More
To learn more about the right approach to dealing with accounting security threats, contact our experts at 1-855-583-7486.
