When it comes to digital collaboration, you get various tools that help you get the work done. However, the state of security is often ignored and assumed to be taken care of. With a secure collaboration in place, you can eliminate most external risks to your business, making it a safe environment with room for growth.

Here, we list some of the best ways to facilitate secure collaboration.

Is Secure Collaboration All About Using the Right Tools?

While the tool or platform you use to collaborate matters, it is not the only thing you will have to keep in mind.

Yes, there are thousands of tools available out there. However, you need to avoid overusing communication and collaboration tools.

Along with a suitable means of collaboration, you need to follow several other practices as well. Ultimately, it depends on your requirements, but you would have fewer things to worry about regarding security with some essential methods in place.

Furthermore, It is evident that the type of solutions for secure collaboration also varies for every business. You may get away with using the right tool, but that may not be enough in some cases.

Of course, consistently taking care of security and privacy is a requirement to guarantee a strong wall of enforcement. However, if you keep a few things in mind, you can minimize the damage, even if an attacker gets access to any of your collaboration platforms.

1. Manage Document Access

Considering almost every business deals with documents (PDF, Word, Excel files, etc.), you should organize them under specific folders to quickly access them when required. However, it is also essential to control its access, i.e., who gets to retrieve or modify it when needed.

Hence, a document access management solution should help you ease up the process. You can limit access to sensitive documents to the owner and the usual paperwork to the employees.

You can look at some of the best document management software tailored for businesses if you’re unsure where to start.

2. Control the Collaboration Environment

The platform or service you use for collaboration should be in your control. In other words, the administrators should have plenty of control (or moderation) over the entire workflow and the collaboration process.

While it may not be possible for every type of business, you can try using project management software or similar to make things easy to organize and control everything. With the right tools in place, you can moderate, monitor, or use administrative tools to seamlessly manage the collaboration platform without requiring much effort.

3. Restrict Personal Information Sharing

It is not just about protecting business data and values; you should also take great care of personal information.

If you do not limit sharing of private information within your organization, employees can be an easy target to extract data from potential attackers. So, it is important to avoid dealing with any personal information out of the scope of your collaboration.

Additionally, you can enforce strict policies to ensure no personal information is shared within the collaboration environment unless explicitly required.

4. Audit Third-Party Integrations or Apps

With a range of services getting closely knitted together, you will find that collaboration platforms rely heavily on third-party integrations.

Nevertheless, third-party services and integrations should be closely monitored and audited to assure that it does not introduce any threats to your collaboration platform.

Regularly changing API keys of the connected apps and services can be one of the best ways to keep the attackers at bay.

5. Organize and Protect Customer Data

Customer data is incredibly valuable for a business. If you can properly organize and protect customer data, it is easy to facilitate secure collaboration for various use cases.

You need to prioritize and eliminate any opportunities that attackers can use to expose your customer’s information.

Hence, it is essential to monitor how or what part of its information is being accessed by employees and how secure it is to access the data via collaboration tools. You must set strict policies for accessing customer information when needed.

Similarly, you may want to implement rules to process new customer information, ensuring it is organized and stored securely in the process.

6. Prepare Guidelines for Collaboration

First, you need to evaluate the collaboration tools you use in your business. Once you do, we suggest you prepare guidelines to facilitate the entire flow of collaboration.

Irrespective of the level of communication (admin level, manager level, etc.), every type of collaboration opportunity should be covered by certain policies to get the fundamentals right for securing information.

7. Security Awareness Training

It may not be possible for all kinds of businesses to put up efforts and host security awareness training for employees.

However, if a business is capable enough, it should focus on hosting regular security awareness sessions for employees to keep up with the latest technology and requirements.

8. Regular Audits by a Peer

Audits are not just limited to third-party services; you should also regularly review the entire network of your collaboration platform. While you should internally keep things in check, it is best to look for a peer review, making sure that you cover every aspect of your business.

With thorough audits and reviews, you can quickly patch loopholes and issues before they get worse.

Collaborate Securely to Grow Your Business Worry-Free

Undoubtedly, there are various things to take care of in a business, and it is tough to focus on one aspect. So, to improve the workflow and scale up your business, ensuring secure collaboration goes a long way.

Although several types of collaboration tools are available for businesses, you should not rush to choose any of them by their popularity. Instead, try them out for a while before deciding on one for the long term. And, you should do plenty of research on securing the tools and their offerings.