Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) today work hard to protect themselves from cybercrime. For this reason, you may be concerned about the growing dependency on ERP solutions for business data management. But you can put your mind at ease because with enterprise-level solutions comes enterprise-level security.
The Concern of Cybercrime
Like many valuable data sources, ERP solutions can be targeted by cybercriminals. Concerning cyber threats specifically related to ERP systems, McKinsey Digital brought back attention to a 2018 report co-authored by two research firms with CISA/DHS collaboration. CSIA/DHS updated the report in April 2021.
This report aimed to raise people’s awareness of the growing number of cyber threats against ERP systems at the time. But now, more importantly, it intends to emphasize the constant effort by cyber-threat actors to attack hosted ERP solutions.
What made ERP systems a target for cyberattacks? The answer boils down to one factor: onsite (internal) ERP operations versus hosted SaaS. Cyber-threat levels increase by 300% when a solution containing valuable data is internet-facing (like an ERP system).
With such a high risk, what is the best way to ensure the security of a hosted SaaS ERP solution?
The Power of Enterprise-Level Security
You can counter widespread and damaging cyberattacks with technology such as cloud-based ERP solutions. ERP systems provide effective cloud ERP security capabilities that don’t require expensive investments in hardware or expansion of IT and security departments to protect businesses.
ERP software vendors host cloud ERP solutions in their own data centers or in third-party data centers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. It is the vendor’s responsibility to maintain, update, and secure the software, not the customer’s.
Since their reputation depends on their ability to meet strict standards and protect their customers’ data, vendors take their security responsibilities very seriously. For this reason, they maintain systems by updating them regularly, controlling access to equipment, protecting against environmental hazards and disasters, and detecting and preventing cyberattacks.
With such comprehensive, enterprise-level protection, modern cloud ERP software offers considerable peace of mind. Below are three additional ways your business’s security can be enhanced with a cloud ERP solution.
1. Reducing Operational Inefficiencies to Secure Your Business
When you use a cloud ERP solution, your business’s data is collected, synchronized, and stored in a centralized system. Every authorized employee has access to this data instantly since it is updated in real time.
Additionally, ERP software provides tools for analyzing data and making fact-based decisions based on it. Your ability to respond to changes in normal business processes or malicious cyberattacks will be sped up by those fact-based decisions, which will lead to optimized workflows and procedures.
2. Expanded Visibility Improves Security
With a cloud ERP solution, you can monitor your entire data environment end-to-end, which gives you a 360° view of your business and reveals vulnerabilities that might have gone undetected. You can quickly prevent and contain potential or actual breaches with real-time alerts and pattern recognition.
3. Empowering Your Teams to Combat Cybercrime
Technology is often portrayed as a solution to cybercrime—a “fight fire with fire” approach. However, it is equally important to educate your employees about cyber security. Even though an ERP system and its vendor provide extremely strong security, your team must still be trained to recognize and respond to threats.
The ERP Advisors Group outlines cybercriminals’ steps to get past your security measures and into your system.
These include:
- Testing
- Setting up the bait
- Using fear and curiosity
- Getting inside
- Preparing for the attack
- Attacking from all sides
- Making demands
You can strengthen your ERP security protocols by understanding these steps and educating your employees. Maintaining vigilance needs to become a part of your company’s culture, a part of who your employees are in the office, and outside the office as part of their normal day-to-day activities. We can only keep our systems safe from attacks by maintaining constant vigilance.
Acumatica Can Help
You can combat ongoing, devious, and ever evolving cyberattacks by combining your employees’ efforts with the right cloud ERP system. Acumatica is passionate about protecting your business, and they offer a range of security features, including:
- IP address restrictions for user logins
- A role-based data access policy and unique security credentials to control user access
- Offering multiple password protection options, such as prompts for changing passwords, password complexity requirements, and unique, multi-factor authentication options
- Built-in redundancy during natural disasters or outages of large networks
- Maintaining separate databases for Acumatica subscribers and segmenting all customer workstations
- ICANN DNSSEC-protected Acumatica URL
- Acumatica’s Advanced Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- Enterprise-class MDR services to the SaaS environments—proactively preventing malicious cyber threats
- Supporting and complying with GDPR and other regulatory requirements
In addition, Acumatica offers 24/7/365 security monitoring from highly trained security operations specialists.
Find out how Acumatica’s ERP system can secure your business if you aren’t using a comprehensive cloud ERP solution. Set up a demonstration with our experts today.