Contact centre as-a-service (CCaaS) provides an efficient and cost-effective way for enterprises to operate via a dispersed work force. Throughout the pandemic this approach has proven its value allowing agents to interact flexibly and handle the challenges of providing professional customer experience during Covid. However, many of the hybrid working capabilities enabled have been assembled in an ad hoc way which in turn present liabilities for security and fraud.
What is needed is a way to ensure important company information is secured and done so in ways that IT departments find easy to maintain. This can be achieved in a number of ways including the requirement of fewer passwords which results in fewer opportunities for them to be compromised. In addition, two-factor authentication (2FA) creates further layers of security that, when augmented by secure file sharing, ensures that only the right people have access to confidential files.
“Using UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE, which can take the place of three or four applications, eliminates these transitional points of weakness.”
These are all attributes contained within UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE – an integrated cloud platform service from NEC. Typically in cyberattacks, the points at which systems integrate or connect are the weak points that fraudsters exploit. NEC Sales Director Andrew Cooper explains, “Using UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE, which can take the place of three or four applications, eliminates these transitional points of weakness. In addition, using one application is simpler for workers to become familiar with and creates a consistent, secure environment for file management and collaboration.”
The rise of cyber attacks
Security has never been more of a challenge. A recent study from cybersecurity services firm Bridewell Consulting has uncovered that more than 70% of the UK’s critical national infrastructure (CNI) firms have seen an increase in cyberattacks since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In general, cyberattacks are on the increase with global weekly attacks per organisation increasing by 50% year-on-year in 2021, reports Techradar. Further to this, research from Contact Babel has uncovered that one-in-three contact centre respondents consider security and fraud to be inhibitors to remote agents.
Having call contact centre agents work from home for at least some of the time is here to stay. November 2020’s survey showed that despite a relaxation in lockdown, 4 in 5 contact centres were still using full or partial remote working, and that almost three-quarters of agents in the survey were based at home.
This level of hybrid working demands CCaaS that is secure to protect workers and customers alike from the headset to the data centre. NEC UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE enables organisations to move on from temporary, riskier amalgamations of systems to ensure functionality that is fit for purpose is provided to every agent. By doing so, agents and customers alike can be confident that security risks are mitigated.
