In order to counter these, companies turn to security software that promise to guard them against such attacks. However, in order to enjoy full benefits, one should follow some best practices. They are highlighted below in detail.

Choose the Right Software

There are many types of security software from anti viruses to Trojan blockers to business specific software. It is important that you select software keeping your business’s requirements in mind and the kind of security related risks it faces.

Every business faces different security threats, the probability of which also differs from business to business. A business that is huge with high risk potential needs to take strong measures in comparison to a small business that is less open to security risks.

Implement it Correctly

Choosing the right software is important, yet it would be useless if it is not implemented correctly. It does not matter how good the software is, if it is not being correctly handled and implemented it will not result in anything substantial.

In order to fully implement it in all sectors, it is important that those handling the security be trained in it. If the security mangers do not know how to handle the software they may end up making errors that may cause the company major problems.

Check the Impact

The impact of the security software should be measured so that the company can conclude its benefits and realize if there is still the need to install more security.

Understandably, the risk a business faces is on a constant rise. With new technology, hackers are finding new ways to break into a system and access data or cause other kinds of damages. This is why it is important that companies do not rest after installing software but keep a tab on its performance which should be monitored by using the right technology and logs related to it should be kept.

Update Regularly

New viruses, malwares, spywares and other such tools are released on a regular basis, especially on important dates such as Valentine’s Day or New Year. Quite often hackers have no ‘real’ motive but to have fun at the expense of others. Yet, this can cause companies serious damage.

However, the good thing is that security software companies regularly release updates and patches to guard organizations against new threats. In order to keep pace, companies must make sure that they update the patches regularly. The best practice is to have auto update open so that the software gets updated automatically whenever a new update is available in the market.

Have a Mixture of Software

It is not advisable to put all your money on a single software until it is customized for your business and has been tested. Using a mix of software with other tools such as firewalls etc., is suggested because it greatly minimizes the risk and allows people to work without worrying about security concerns.

Software development is a complex process that should be handled with care. There are certain rules that should be followed in order to have secure software. They include:

Know the Basic Rules of Software Security

There are some rules that those linked with software development should be aware of. The basic rules are: confidentiality, integrity, availability and authentication. The makers must make sure that they keep confidential all the information that can cause any damage to the software or the industry using it.

There should be protection against any kind of unauthorized alteration so that the software serves the purpose well. Availability talks about the software doing what it is supposed to do at all times and be protected against destruction leaving no loopholes. Lastly, authentication means that only those who have the right to do so make a request and perform software related tasks that they have the authority to perform.

Additionally, software should have the ability to audit and build reports that can be accessed in the future for reference. Lastly, the management and everyone else associated in the development of the software must be aware of these tenets and ensure that these are fully implemented.

Some tools that can help in implementing these rules include encryption, ciphertext and other such algorithms.

Ensure the Protection of Sensitive Information

Software are of various types, yet the common thing is that they all deal with information, which often is confidential. Confidential information is any information that is of much value to a company and which if reaches unsafe hands may cause damage to the company. The damage may be financial or of other kind such as a loss of image. In simple words information that cannot be made public is confidential information.

While identifying confidential or sensitive information is easy, the main task is to make sure that such information not be compromised in any way. Software that work on such information (transporting, updating, storing, processing) should be protected so that the information not be compromised. Data should be properly classified using a workable protection mechanism.

Design and Develop Software with Secure Features

Security software is not the only kind of software that is supposed to be ‘secure’. Every software must be designed in a way that it defends itself against threats. Quite often, designing has more to do with security related problems than coding. One should take care of these points at the initial stage so that there is no trouble in the end.

Software must be logically considered leaving no security related loopholes. Additionally, they should be tested so that they can be certified to be secure. Many software such as most MS Office applications have their own security features, such as ‘password protection’ where the data can be protected through passwords, disabling unauthorized access.

Such features should be added at the development stage to provide security to the users. Additionally, it is also beneficial for the company developing the software as secure software sells better and has a longer life.

A research from Echelon One and Venafi, an enterprise key and certificate management company, says that a great number of IT departments (more than half) are at fault at some very important security related practices.

Given below are four things your IT department should care about in order to be able to guard your company in a better way.

1. Rotate SSH Keys Every 12 Months

According to the study, around 82% of IT departments in most companies fail to rotate SSH keys annually. The failure to do so puts a company at great risk because employees that are parting ways with the company may be able to access crucial details and cause company damage.

Every year a great number of employees leave companies. Every staff member that leaves takes some information along him or herself, which if reaches unsafe hands can cause a great amount of damage to the company. In order to secure against such damages, companies should keep changing SSH keys annually and make sure they are not easily guessable.

2.  Train Users In Best Practices

The most important thing is the ‘training’. The human element of any organization is easily the most vulnerable. It does not really matter how good of security software you use, it will not work properly if the people operating it are not well aware of how things work.

Software should be fully implemented and staff members should be trained in using the software and the internet. Firewalls and security software can do so much, a lot of the dangers that security system faces comes from within. Staff members should be taught how to use computers properly. Tips include not using flash drives without scanning or not clicking links that look suspicious.

The study from Echelon One says that around 77% of companies fail to take steps in this regard. It is recommended that quarterly training sessions be conducted and staff members be taught the best practices.

3.  Encrypt Cloud Data

The data hosted on the cloud is most vulnerable. It is guarded by the security system provided by the cloud service provider. Things are not really in your hands. However, there still are some tips that can be of much use.

Firstly, one should use a service provider carefully – one that uses the right kind of software and guarantees security. Secondly, data should be encrypted so that the risk of it reaching unsafe hands is minimized.  Plus, the right encryption keys should be used. Report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology suggests that 1024-bit encryption keys are considered obsolete now and companies should turn to 2046-bit encryption keys.

5. Have An Arrangement For Substituting Breached Certificate Authorities

Almost every company uses digital certificates to validate services. Digital certificates are susceptible to fraud, and must be changed when compromised. A management process should be in place to look after this matter.

There are some best practices in this regard that companies should follow in order to minimize risk and maintain security.

Protect the Brand

CSO magazine’s executive editor, Scott Berinato, believes that hackers do not only affect the software but also impact the company’s brand image. They impact customer’s confidence in the brand affecting it permanently.

Customers generally do not blame the hackers in case of security failure, but the company that was supposed to provide them with adequate security. It is a never-ending challenge and companies must rise to it.

Organizations need to stay ahead of those performing such cybercrimes. Security breaches can have dire financial consequences, yet the loss of customer’s trust is the real cost to the organization.

Companies should make sure that they do not lose their customers by building a framework that keeps everything under control.

Know The Business

Most experts agree that in addition to a strong technical background, one needs to have an understanding of the business as well. Without knowing the business it is difficult to create the right security system for it.

Security is not an impediment. Its main job is to secure the business and reduce threats. From security software’s standpoint, knowing about a business helps identifying compliance and regulatory requirements of that business in the light of which the controls to be used are selected.

Understand the Software

It is important to know the business, yet it is equally important to know the technology of the software as well. Failure to understand about it may lead to poor implementation of the software, which means one may not be able to derive the benefits out of it.

In case of in-house software development, it is important to understand the company’s infrastructure and its components. Software must be developed keeping in mind the company’s needs and assuring that it does not impact the company in any negative way.

In simple words, one should clearly understand the interplay of the already established security system with the new software. Understanding the technology helps you make the right decisions so that all kinds of risks are minimized.

In case of software procurement, it is important to realize that claims regarding the software’s features must be properly verified and scrutinized for implementation. Just the availability of security features does not mean that the software is secure. Correct implementation of the system is what actually makes the difference.

Ensure Compliance to Regulation, Privacy and Governance

An unregulated industry is more the exception than the norm. The increase in privacy and requirements inflicts a grave burden on companies. In order to develop the right software and implement it correctly one must fully understand the policies (internal and external) that are related to the business. Failure to obey the regulations and security compliance may bring more trouble for the company than good.

However, many times software implementations result in failure. This can happen due to a number of reasons that include; unrealistic expectations, lack of commitment from the top management, inadequate resources and the mismatch between business and software requirements. Other reasons may be the lack of training, poor project management and poor communication along the hierarchy.

The possibility of success can be increased if firms are willing to use the key best practices of software implementation. This will ensure successful software implementation as well as long term business success for the firm. The best practices to ensure successful software implementation are mentioned below.

Identify the Key Issues

The business issues must be first identified and then analyzed clearly. The executives at the leadership level should allow an open discussion regarding software implementation so that the key issues can come to the surface. For this purpose, executives should provide a comfortable discussion zone where there are no organizational barriers so that employees can discuss issues openly. The third party vendors must be completely abreast with the issues. All parties involved in the implementation process are required to align their tasks with the mutual goal of successful implementation.

Establish Realistic Time Frames

Organizations mostly tend to establish very optimistic time frames for their project. They must not ignore the limitations that may obstruct their implementation processes and set the time frames accordingly. If one step of the process is taking more time, the dates of the entire process must be shifted forward. The project managers should regularly monitor the schedule and modify it according to the current progress of the project.

Align Work Streams

The work streams in the organization need to be identified, aligned and regularly monitored to ensure a smooth implementation. The dependencies in a firm need to be understood during the project planning stage for better resource allocation and appropriate time scheduling.

Have a Meticulous and More Realistic View

Many times, project managers see an overall picture and miss out on the little intricacies. Projects like software implementation are critical and require a manager to view the progress with greater precision. Have a critical eye and viewing the progress in a more critical light will allow the manager to identify any issues present. Managers can also identify potential risks and take proactive measures to avoid them using this technique.

Manage Expectations

Set realistic expectations for the project. Being too optimistic may not be good for the organization. It is much better for managers to be realistic and keep the expectations afresh in the minds of the team members.

Seek an Objective Opinion

Even though project managers are highly skilled and experienced, but if the entire project is assessed by a neutral third party, which means by an outside expert, a more objective opinion of the entire project can be gained.

The level of security introduced by the software can be checked by evaluating the results that have followed after application. The results of course depend on the kind of technology used to develop that particular software along with the efficiency of the people developing it.

Essentially, the secure technologies that have been chosen for software development are less likely to be implemented firmly as the possibility is very much secluded. There are times when the processes being used to assist the development of project software become victims of falling behind schedule, losing project scope, and going over budget. Therefore, development that’s linked to better business management and best practices must be applied.

Maintaining Brand Name and Consumer Trust

Over the years, there have been many cases of commercial hacking that have given a bad name to some of the top brands in America. Hackers tend to steal information from the website of a particular brand and leave the owners to suffer. The losses are not only financial, but a great deal of consumers are turned away and remain afraid to turn back towards the same brand ever again.

Since consumers trust their brands on protecting them from any possible harm, it is important that any software being developed by a business should be up to the task. The software should be able to protect valuable consumer data along with maintain the level of trust existing between a corporation and its customers. This will also help the brand name to stay intact, avoiding any bad publicity that may lead to losses or possible shutdown of production.

Hire Professionals that Understand the Security Needs of your Company

When hiring professionals i.e. technologists for developing security software, always make sure that the people you choose are able enough to answer to the company needs. With an increasing lineup of new technologies, your technologist should have a clear idea about what the organization requires to reach its security target. The correct type of software can save your business from being targeted by losses and bad publicity. And this can only happen when you’re clear about your idea of company security and data protection.

By introducing compliance software into your business, you’ll be able to safeguard your business’s success as it is designed to suit all application needs of a business be it banking, accounting or science. Assuring constant compliance within your business can become a headache at times when you’re dealing with changing policies or redistributing revised manuals or even dealing with an injury case that has brought bad light upon your company.

Using software to ensure compliance can be both easy and timesaving. For example, a policy change manual can be circulated within the company on the same say it was created by sending a soft copy to all departments and getting them printed or checked out by all the employees.

Colleagues can seek each other’s views for improvement in generating new policies and improving the old ones with critical input and consent. This will create an atmosphere of team work and acceptance. Older policies can be archived for future reference and guidance on what changes should and should not occur in the new ones.

As part of best practices, compliance can be fully adhered to with the use of software. For example, surveys can be conducted more swiftly on computers. Employees would just have to click on the required button and they’re free to go. Also, for safety from fraudulent acts, each employee can be given their special id or password that will not allow anyone except the employee to access his files.

An easy online test to ensure that the employee has understood the new policies of compliance will help the management understand whether that employee will be able to comply with the policies or not.

Functions of SOA Governance Software

The software assists enterprises through the following:

ü  It ensures that the services designed, identified and created are relevant to the objective of the company. These services must be compatible with Microsoft, SAP and IBM.

ü  It creates services from applications working on any platform that are compliant with the policies of the enterprise. These services are audited and enforced across different platforms.

ü  It promotes, formalizes and ensures consistency between customers’ demand and supply of services.

ü  It facilitates planning governance by breaking down the entire system into distinct areas. It makes sure that the process of Development of Governance is effective.

By integrating SOA governance, enterprises can ensure best practices like application, integrity and usability of assets. The whole process of ensuring compliance is broken down into operational governance, development governance, planning governance, policy governance and lifecycle governance.

Best Practices SOA Promotes:

• Automation of Governance: SOA manages workflow through lifecycle management. It implements compliance with building permit, integrated provision, interdepartmental negotiation and contract management and lifecycle management.
• Standardization of Policy Management: SOA ensures proper policy governance and uniform lifecycle.
• Meta-Data Federation: It ensures best practices like heterogeneous SOA Governance, security management, and integration of policies in the architecture of the enterprise.
• Virtualization of Services: This promotes reliability and performance standards, to support governance.
• Trust in Management: It facilitates operability across disparate partners and platforms. It mediates threat prevention systems across disparate partners.
• Compliance and Validation: SOA Governance software implements and enforces policies at various stages of the enterprise.
• Mitigate Impact of Change: Governance changes management strategies and impacts processes for analysis that are integrated with workflow. SOA mitigates the impact on workflow.
• Consumer Contract Terms: This software offer better service access, policy contracts, SLA and capacity. It provides options to improve customer contract Terms. These include, request, negotiation and approval workflow terms and conditions.

Adopting SOA Governance Software for best practices is highly recommended for most enterprises.

This is why it is recommended that CEO’s and Managers implement the use of HR software applications that ensure regulation compliance. This is because scheduling, cost and performance is not easy to manage.

The ideal HR software will feature the following best practices:

Personnel & Online Employee Management

Hiring is one of the most tasking duties and therefore HR needs quick and effortless access to information. HR requires access to all personnel files and they must be organized for easy access. There is need for best practices in managing information 24/7. A firm may be online or offline, and therefore HR software applications assist with employee management practice.

Time Tracking and Employee Gateway

Keeping track of hours of work is very important for HR department. There are software applications that serve as an employee gateway. From the moment the employee logs his hours of work can be tracked for both online and offline companies. This also provides employees with best practice options that allow them to request for time off. Managing time tracking therefore becomes effortless for the HR.

Custom Reports

Preparing monthly reports about employee activity for performance evaluation is a very important best practice. The ideal HR software provides users the options to choose for its reports. It allows one to filter and sort the fields of the reports according to the requirements of the enterprise. Moreover, the generated report can be exported with details to other payroll software applications.

Download and Customize HR Forms

The diversity of business leads to more than 300 forms and documents that can be used for the HR. The ideal HR software allows one to download and customize them accordingly.

Labor Laws

Compliance with labor laws is a sensitive best practice. HR needs assistance but in compliance with regulations. The best software ensures that this is maintained in HR processes. Failure of compliance leads to severe penalties and knowledge about this is a recommended best practice for HR personnel.

Provides HR Guides

The right HR software also provides guidance on processes that require compliance. For example, hiring, workforce development, retaining, and terminating employees needs specific approach.

Calendar and Reminders

One of the greatest task HR personnel need assistance with is scheduling. The best HR software will provide a calendar and options for fixing reminders. There are always long to-do lists for HR and time is never enough.

These best practices can be maintained effortlessly through compliance with the right software application. At the end of the day, HR personnel can maintain a balance between schedule, performance and cost.

Any professional business person knows that a successful CRM is the backbone of business. It serves as the means of bringing together customers, sales, market trends, marketing strategies and responsiveness. In order to achieve these best practices, CEOs and managers have constantly been working towards a solution. People have been working hard to make the process of CRM better than it is for the past few years. As a result there have been researches on technology to make the entire process of CRM better without crumbling the structure of the company.

CRM provides an insight into the value, behavior and reaction of customers to various business best practices. This improves customer services and increases efficiency of employees by streamlining the marketing and sales processes. It thereby improves close rates, improves profiting, reduces costs, and increases shares of customers in the profits of the business.

Over the past four years, executives at Intellinet failed at providing new technology that would transform sales of software applications for Customer Relationship Management. The main reason for their failure was their weakness at best practices.

The new vice president of the company, Scott Ehmen had reassured his sales personnel that this time things were different. He made his point, and Customer Relationship Management is better than it has been over the years. The latest CRM system has a sales increase by 50% for the company. There had been failures and disappointments in the past when previous systems didn’t work as expected. They were supposed to help executives isolate patterns of sales, to help them plan their sale strategies better.

Furthermore, the purpose of using CRM software is to improve best practices. The new software application was designed to offer better range of price points, additional targeted solutions and increase accountability for its performance. Therefore, not having effective CRM software will be a serious disadvantage for companies in competition.

“Act!” is the latest CRM application recommended to obtain business best practices. It is not just the best solution to compliance issues; it is also the most affordable option in the market. “Act!” can go through years of data and recognize consumer patterns without delay. There are numerous companies and hospitals where “Act!” has been introduced. In all these business setups, profits increased with improved CRM. Through the use of accurate recording system, and track leads most companies have succeeded in increasing their conversion rate from 20 percent to 40 percent. Like all other software applications, as the number of user’s increases, the cost of the product increases.

Nonetheless, there are better chances of increased profits and success for businesses. This is through implementing best practices with CRM software application.