Security should always be one of the primary points considered by any business investing in new technology. UCaaS, or Unified Communications as a Service, can be an excellent tool for boosting the productivity, efficiency, and compliance levels of any business.
With a unified ecosystem of communication tools in the cloud, businesses have more scope to track the end-to-end conversations of their team members. UCaaS can also make it easier to implement access control and privacy policies across an entire business. However, to make a UCaaS space as secure as possible, businesses need to work with the correct vendor.
Choosing the right UCaaS vendor from day one ensures companies can leverage everything from end-to-end encryption to compliant data storage. Here are some steps to help with choosing the most secure UCaaS vendor in 2022 and beyond.
Step 1: Explore Industry-Specific Security Requirements
The first step in choosing a suitable vendor for a secure UCaaS strategy, is understanding the specific threats which face businesses from different industries. Companies from the financial sector will need to ensure they’re compliant with different regulatory guidelines to those in the healthcare environment. Taking time to assess the potential risks the company might face is crucial to picking the correct tools.
Some UCaaS vendors can offer specialist services and support to those in highly-regulated industries, like the government landscape. Others can also allow organisations to choose precisely where data is stored, which assists with data sovereignty issues. Making a list of all the key considerations the company needs to consider when creating secure and private environments is crucial.
Step 2: Examine Wider Regulations
After looking at the specific guidelines and regulations business leaders need to follow in certain industries, the next stage is making sure vendors are compliant with the latest overall regulations for data management and security. Most UCaaS leaders have tools in place to assist companies with complying to guidelines like GDPR and CCPA.
However, as the privacy requirements of consumers continues to evolve, it’s worth remembering the rules businesses have to follow may change at any time. Business leaders will need to ensure they’re working with a vendor with a clear understanding of the digital threat landscape. For many businesses with specific concerns about regulatory data management, it may be a good idea to reach out to the UCaaS vendor in question and ask for assistance.
Step 3: Look at Employee Risks
According to studies, around 88% of data breaches are caused by an employee mistake. With this in mind, it’s crucial for business leaders to think about how their team members are going to access and use different UCaaS solutions. Most of the top vendors in the market today offer various tools for access control, to help reduce the number of people leveraging data in a network.
Companies with hybrid and remote working employees will need to ensure secure systems are in place to protect team members when they’re logging into software from a distance. It may also be important to think about things like multi-factor authentication, to reduce the risks associated with users losing access to crucial tools like laptops and smartphones.
Step 4: Prioritise End-to-end Visibility
There are various must-have security solutions in any UCaaS environment today, from end-to-end encryption for all communications, to secure cloud storage. One of the most important things companies can prioritise to ensure employees and customers remain protected, is excellent visibility. Tracking, reporting, and monitoring tools built into the UCaaS environment will make it easier to keep on top of potential issues, from toll fraud, to misplaced data.
