Fast OR Safe...? File Transfers can be both!

Sending files externally...? Now it can be both Safe AND Easy!

There was a time when ensuring your organisation’s file transfers were safe was a hassle… time-consuming, inconvenient, and requiring specialised technical skills.

Thankfully, that’s no longer the case. Ensuring your precious data can be safely shared within your organisation and with your external trading partners need no longer be complicated. In fact, the best data technologies save you time and money, and make data exchange easy.

Here’s how.

The Fast and the Fraught

Hitting “send” is an everyday routine for most employees. Sending files to suppliers and customers is as easy as a couple of mouse clicks.

However, each of these thousands of daily data transactions is a potential target for cybercriminals. The more ad-hoc and varied the file transfers, the greater the risks.

Too often, organisations only realise their need for a more robust approach after they’ve experienced a costly data breach. Other times, data vulnerabilities become apparent when organisations want to start trading with partners who employ more stringent data safeguards... particularly in industries where there are strict data compliance requirements, such as healthcare, finance, transportation and defence. 

Failure to adhere to an industry's data security regime can lead to hefty fines and sanctions for both parties to the transaction. 

Solving for Ease AND Security

Solutions such as managed file transfer (MFT), data loss prevention (DLP), data classification, and email security can automatically secure your organisation’s data, while simultaneously keeping your business humming. 

Better still, by automating thousands of routine file transfers, the best solutions increase an organisation’s efficiency by saving employees’ time and enabling them to focus on higher value-added work.

How to Get Started

In our experience, few organisations begin with a completely clean slate and zero data protection measures in place. 

Usually, some enterprising individuals will have independently employed varying degrees of security using free or low-cost consumer file transfer tools.  Other employees may believe – incorrectly – that they’re securing their data by simply applying files’ “read-only” settings. A few may have gone a step further and narrowly limited who has access to their department's data.

Unfortunately – aside from the inherent risks of using multiple incomplete and incompatible security approaches – siloed security measures like these can also inadvertently remove resources that knowledge workers need to conduct business. As a result, organisational efficiency is impeded, with critical information becoming too slow or difficult to access.

A Holistic Approach to Data Exchange

At Generic Systems Australia we help organisations embrace a whole-of-business approach which reduces risk and makes data more secure while keeping your business operations and relationships running smoothly and efficiently.

A good starting point is considering the impact security policies and practices have on your customer and vendor relationships:

• How would a data breach impact your business’s reputation, bottom line and supplier relationships?

• Do the policies and tools you currently use hinder your employees’ effectiveness, efficiency and productivity?

• Could new technology speed up the actual delivery of critical information?

• Could new technology be simple enough to use that most employees could readily adopt it?

The Human Factor

The best data security measures are invisible and automated. We’ve found that the less organisations need to rely on employees to change their behaviour, the better the risk mitigation.

But even so, educating employees on data security should be an element of an improved approach.

Start by explaining why you need to put in place the new policies or tools. Employees who understand the high stakes of data theft and compliance breaches are much better disposed to taking ownership of managing data transfer risks. 

Then focus on education.  By equipping your various department heads and business process owners with knowledge about secure data exchange approaches, you can help them make the right choices when they liaise with their various supply chain partners.

A multi-phase approach, leveraging middle managers and key influencers in your organisation to champion best practices, is often best.

Automatically Securing Everyday Data

Ideally, we want our employees to be able to safely send and receive emails and attachments without the need for them to take any additional, time-consuming steps.

MFT, DLP, data classification, and email security make that possible through advanced levels of automation.

In combination, these technologies examine each data transfer event and thoughtfully apply policies such as encryption, auditing, user and recipient validation, redaction, etc.  This way, employees do not have to manage any of those activities, and the data transfers are performed quickly, efficiently and securely.

As workforces and their workplaces become physically more dispersed – sometimes in the office, sometimes from home, sometimes from a local café – this automated approach becomes more and more beneficial. Not only does it accelerate and streamline the process of transferring data, it also reduces the risk of human error.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

Data exchange is like the human circulatory system - unseen, but absolutely critical to your organisation’s ongoing vitality. Protecting and enhancing it is both necessary and worthwhile.

At Generic Systems Australia, we’ve observed that moving to a more automated, secure and efficient approach can sometimes be stalled by the very “bloat” we discussed earlier. Taking out the too-many tools which have sprung up across an organisation’s silos can seem too complicated and time-consuming to tackle.

However, there is an easy and relatively inexpensive way forward…

A centralised tool, such as the class-leading GoAnywhere MFT with its dashboard-style interface, can provide a holistic approach. Rather than having separate tools for encryption, auditing, reporting and automating file transfers, GoAnywhere can handle it all. 

It even scales as your business grows.

If you’d like to discuss making your organisation’s data transfers safer and easier, adding to your organisation’s productivity and bottom line, please feel free to contact our Business Manager, Bradley Copson, (mail to: bradley@gensys.com.au ).

He’ll be more than happy to offer you an obligation-free discussion, no-cost trial, or Proof of Concept.

At Generic Systems Australia, we're your local experts in Secure Managed File Transfer.