For many years the talk of “big data” has lead many companies to collect as much data on their customers as possible. Learn how to ensure the security of your customer data.

However shifts in both the political landscape with things such as GPDR together with recent high profile news events is causing many companies to realise data is as much an asset as it is a liability. The more information held on your customers, the more valuable that information is to hackers and competitors.

With penalties under GDPR of €20 million+, the cost of getting data security wrong is not just a public relations issue but a financial one too. If even the largest of companies can struggle to keep on top of the latest cyber attacks and data loss – what hope is there for a much smaller enterprise? There are certainly significant steps you can take in ensuring your data is secure and comply with the relevant law.

Your contact centre provider should offer simple but effective tools to help you keep your data secure such as password policies or two-factor authentication.

First and foremost, all communications between your users and your systems should be fully encrypted. Web browsers now clearly indicate when a connection is insecure, but you also need to make sure any voice or video communication is securely encrypted too. We at QContact force all our calls to be encrypted by default.

It’s also important to ensure that once data is held in your systems, that it’s encrypted on the disks it is stored on. Otherwise a breach in the datacentre can expose all your customer’s information. Whilst most providers give no guarantees about encrypting data at rest, QContact ensures all your customer’s information from call recordings to messages to notes, are all stored in encrypted form at all times.

Security also extends to your users – many data breaches are caused by social engineering your users or weak passwords. Your contact centre provider should offer simple but effective tools to help you keep your data secure such as password policies or two-factor authentication. It goes without saying, we offer both out-of-the-box.