Technology has revolutionized every aspect of daily life, particularly in the workplace. Now more than ever, technological advancements have made workers more efficient. In today’s blog post, we will explore how automation technology is digitally transforming how businesses respond to unexpected events.
Let us begin.
What is Cybersecurity Emergency Prevention?
In today’s ‘golden age of technological advancement, cyberattacks are on the rise. Every day, cybercriminals are finding more innovative ways to gain unauthorized access to your data. With the use of cybersecurity automation, you will be better equipped to predict, protect from, and prevent cyberattacks. Implementing automated documentation to help produce cybersecurity policies, processes, and procedures will enable team members to access accurate documentation. This helps aid in the prevention of, or recovery from, a cyber-attack.
Additionally, automation technology makes it easier to retrieve all of your documents, whenever you need them. This way you don’t demand additional time and money for the handling and processing of hard-copy documents. Integrating document automation systems with cybersecurity automation tools is a way to combat cybercriminals. Cybercriminals use modern technology to increase the amount and intensity of their attacks.
How Can I Access Cybersecurity Automation Technology?
While there are many ways to integrate cybersecurity automation into your organization, here are a few popular tools that can help protect your company against cyber threats.
1. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic process automation is the use of robots to conduct a series of tasks. This includes searching, scanning, and monitoring the detection of security vulnerabilities. RPA reduces human errors and is an asset to security teams, providing 24-hour coverage.
2. Automated Security Testing
Software designed to pinpoint and rectify security vulnerabilities in features like authentication, authorization, applications, and software behaviors. Testing may detect bugs in your system, vulnerabilities in the coding, or overall performance issues. Automated testing can also provide instant feedback. The alerts regard potential security issues in your software, network, personnel, physical worksite, or organizational strategies.
3. Custom Automation Solutions
Every business should have cybersecurity solutions that are specifically tailored to meet their needs. The best way to organize and protect critical data in case of a data breach is to have a Business Continuity Plan. “A business continuity plan (BCP) is a document that outlines how a business will continue operating during an unplanned service disruption.” A computer security incident response plan (CSIRP) is a detailed course of action. It clearly states how each team member should respond during a cyberattack. Therefore, this reduces response times and minimizes harm, and is an essential part of any business continuity plan.
Ways To Implement Cyber Security Automation
Now that we know what types of automation technology are out there in terms of cyber security, now let’s talk about how businesses implement them to make their lives better!
1. Data Correlation
As more and more cyber attacks take place and are thwarted, the more data there is to parse through. Even when systems fail, cyber security vendors still have data that can help prevent and understand the next steps of criminals. Gathering threat data across all threat vectors is essential to stopping these attacks, even across different companies and other vendors.
Of course, since the mere scope of the amount of data that is being collected is too great for a single person or cost-efficient team to handle by themselves, that’s where automation technology comes in! Using machine learning, automation technology allows sequencing to happen much, much faster, not to mention more accurately.
2. Generating Fast Protections
I threat has been identified! Whatever can you do!? First, stop panicking. Second, let cyber security automation do its job.
Because of the work done by automation technology in the prior example, it makes this part even easier, as this is very time sensitive. The goal is to understand what type of attack has been made so the cyber security tech can make protections faster than it takes the attack to spread to the client organization’s endpoints, cloud, or networks.
Because it takes time to analyze what exactly is happening, the best place to implement these protections is not where the attack was detected, but where it will probably end up, or on its probable route. Doing all this work by hand, while totally doable, would likely take longer to implement than the attack takes to finish the job. Thus, why automation technology makes this all a breeze!
3. Creating Protections Faster Than Attacks Can Progress
Now, protections need to be implemented to prevent attacks from running through their life cycles. Like any good defense, these protections should be spread throughout the targeted network, covering both the point where the attack was detected and any other crucial point throughout the system. While, yes, someone could take the time to add them to all parts of the network plus all of the technologies within the company, it is much more time efficient to let automation technology take care of it instead. Also, with the massive amount of data available to the technology, it can easily target any area it thinks hackers will target.
4. Detecting Infections Already Present
To reiterate, one of the biggest parts of protecting any system from cyber attacks is understanding when there has been an attack, whether it can be classified as a breach, and if the system has already been compromised. A breach in this case means that the attack has done its dirty work and the system now has a hole which hackers can now pull information from. Automation technology can analyze different types of actual and potential attacks that could compromise their clients by not only seeing how they start but how they end.
It is also important to realize that if large companies are using automation technology to make themselves harder targets to infiltrate, then it would be in any hacker group’s best interest to come up with their own. Thus, it would behoove any company worried about such attacks to keep investing in automation technology, and to switch vendors or products once faster automation technology is available.
COVID-19
It has been a few years since the state of New York was the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. The pandemic led to a statewide shutdown that threatened business survival on a global scale. This single-handedly changed the nature of how we work. While many companies had adjusted to working remotely, remote work still poses a few challenges to some, particularly those working with high volumes of information. The solution? Electronic document management systems (EDMS).
What is Electronic Document Management Systems?
An EDMS is a network of tools designed to help organize, store, access, and regulate the creation of documents in your business. Within these systems are automation software, apps, and tools organizations can use to streamline their business processes. So, in anticipation of a disruption in operations due to a natural disaster, pandemic, or another unexpected event, you can rest assured knowing that there is technology your company can use to make sure the day-to-day operation stays on track.
What are the Benefits of EDMSs?
For employees working from home, document sharing and collaboration tools make it easier to share, edit, and access documents with speed and efficiency. There is a rise in employees using their personal computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other devices for the workplace. Therefore, EDMSs have mobile app features that cater to teams looking for the ability to change and distribute documents from their devices.
Managers can use EDMSs to implement workflow automation. Team members ensure they know their tasks at every phase of the document creation process, regardless of where they are working from. Workflows automate pathways that track the progression of various tasks. Additionally, managers can customize workflows by assigning specific tasks and setting user permission rules to limit who has the authority to review, revise or approve documents.
Although remote work has boomed in popularity, it is important to consider possible weaknesses of the system. Without proper security systems and protocols, employees run the risk of exposing organizational data and information. To counter this, EDMSs offer a multitude of data security automation services. Examples are encryption software, compliance tools, data backup, file replication, and disaster recovery.
Overall, a document management system improves team collaboration, streamlines end-to-end processes, and most importantly, saves time and money. So, whether you are preparing for an emergency, trying to recover from one, or simply just looking to improve company efficiency, automation technology can be instrumental in how successfully your business moves forward.
Conclusion
In today’s digital landscape, organizations that face an unexpected disruption can turn to automation technology as the new modern way to solve problems. With so many tools that enable businesses to streamline the document creation process, boost preventative measures, and increase overall productivity so future crises can always be averted.
How can EDC help?
At EDC we have a team of technical writers trained in automation technology to collaborate with businesses and corporations to help reinvent your old document process and bring your written content into the 21st century.
Whether you need a single technical writer for a brief project or a team of consultants to produce a complete line of documentation, the quality of our work is guaranteed for you. Our clients work closely with an Engagement Manager from one of our 30 local offices for the entire length of your project at no additional cost. Contact us at (800) 221-0093 or sales@edc.us to get started.
Written by Kimberly Jones