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The Human Error Side of Business

Team Client Portal Data Security
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90% of data breaches are caused by human error (1)

Alarming right?! This is a concerning statistic for both business owners and your clients. It would make anyone run for the most extreme and stringent IT programme available. However, that may not be the best for employees and owners alike. There are more effective ways to combat or, as we like to say at Clinked, nudge your employees and management team towards better business practices around data to limit the impact of mistakes without sacrificing your team’s ability to do their jobs with limited friction. 

Dont let this

We thought it would be interesting to examine a recent example of a “human” employee error that lead to major consequences for their business. Also, to show how technologies such as Clinked can help reduce it from happening in the future. Enjoy! 

Context (2): 

Summer analyst joins a prestigious investment bank. Managing Director gives said analyst an assignment to clean up an investment deck for distribution to a market audience (i.e. public not internal). The analyst worked to complete the deck, which included sensitive pipeline details and other non-public details, as most investment decks do. Upon completing the assignment, the analyst sent along the complete deck to the ‘original distribution group’ on the Managing Directors email - with one exception. 

Result: 

The analyst’s good intention resulted in 150+ public market participants receiving the highly sensitive deck. Sadly, the individual did not type in the ‘original distribution group’ correctly and it went out with no way to ensure 100% recall. 

 

Verizon

 

Is this an isolated incident? 

This is a challenge of many businesses. In a 2018 Data Breach Investigation report by Verizon, over 1,799 breaches in the US were analysed to identify the Top 20 Actions causing breaches(3). Based on this, human error (i.e. misdelivery) was the 4th largest action leading to the breach as shown in this chart.  

Majority of employees do not maliciously put business or client sensitive data in jeopardy. Instead, there are two key errors that occur: Skill-based and Decision-based (4). These can result in some common human-made errors such as misdelivery (i.e. example given), password problems (think written note in employee notebook), patching/phishing (i.e. opening a suspicious email or link), or physical security errors (i.e. dread lost mobile in cab) (4). It’s the responsibility of business owners and management teams to help their employees keep business and client data secure with top-notch low friction processes. 

What could be done differently?

When one needs to share files with clients or internally there need to be secure channels and processes in place. A product like a VDR allows a secure, one-way communication channel between a business and their external parties. But, what about two-way corresponding between internal and external parties, such as clients? 

 

How can Clinked help? 

That’s where Clinked comes into play. Clinked is a two-way secure client portal that is white-labelled to ensure the business branding is front of mind. There are a number of ways that using Clinked can lower the risk of data breaches caused by human error. By using a secure portal to share and collaborate on documents, you are keeping your clients data in a safe environment, therefore lowering the risk of it falling into the wrong hands. Using a client portal doesn't mean that you need to completely stop using email either, it simply creates a better process of using email. Features within Clinked like Reach Out make sending out an email to all, or specific clients an easy task seeing as all of your contacts are already grouped together. It provides a much better experience for both ends, you and your clients. 

Also, Clinked has a mobile forward philosophy

Want to have a mobile app, but not interested in spending thousands of dollars or pounds on development - or resources on developing and implementing? 

We’ve got you covered. Clinked can build you a completely white-label mobile app for a one off fee of £400, then a monthly fee of £120 thereafter - this is compared to anywhere between £30k-80k ground-up development excluding database development costs. The mobile functionalities make it easy for you and your clients to access important documentation on the go. As well as sending out push notifications for any important updates. Want to try it out? If you’re already a Clinked user, you can download the Clinked app for free from the App Store and Google Play. 

If you think you could benefit from all of the functionalities Clinked offers, whilst lowering the risk of a data breach - why not book in for a demo with our product specialist to learn more and discuss your needs? 

Book a Demo with Clinked

 

Footnotes:

  1. https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/90-percent-of-data-breaches-are-caused-by-human-error
  2. https://www.intralinks.com/blog/2019/09/what-analyst-learned-fat-finger-mistake-nearly-tainted-global-investment-banks-public?utm_content=104015706&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-272247
  3. https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/reports/DBIR_2018_Report.pdf
  4. https://blog.getusecure.com/post/the-role-of-human-error-in-successful-cyber-security-breaches

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