Though much manufacturing is outsourced to other countries, namely China – well, maybe not so much, considering the looming threats of a trade war between the Donald Trump administration and the on-defense People’s Republic of China – manufacturing of various goods makes up roughly one-eighth of the United States’ gross domestic product or about 12%.
One thing about most manufacturers, however: because so much of manufacturers’ work requirements are repetitive, monotonous tasks with little variation in one’s workday, people tend to get tired on the job and lose interest in their employer; further, workers for manufacturers are less likely to have highly-trained skills in the disciplines of information technology, computers, and other tech know-how.
Manufacturers – or any business, for that matter – that fail to appropriately, carefully balance productivity and security are cruisin’ for a proverbial bruisin’ from cyber criminals or industry spies employed by other businesses to gain knowledge of competitors’ trade secrets.
So, how can security and productivity be reasonably balanced? Before we answer this surprisingly tough question, let’s first consider two central challenges that manufacturers are faced with.
Every business, including manufacturers, has a wide role of employee responsibilities. Some might do nothing but construct finished goods, though others might only work in human resources – nowhere else. Both of these workers likely think differently than one another, making the segregation of employee access passes to various system functions correlated directly with success.
A second challenge is that, because technology advances more rapidly than it ever has before – tech will continue doing so until technology can’t be beefed up any further – constantly keeping up with developments in access and identity management proves challenging, leaving too many people out of the proverbial loop when it comes to ideal treatment of user access capabilities.
Now, here’s what you can do.
Delegate permission to third-party service providers carefully
Modern business research finds that, of the largest companies across the United States, roughly 30 percent authorize third-party service providers to make changes and gain accesses without first requiring explicit approval. 10 percent of those businesses do business with – wait for it – in excess of 200 partners.
They inherently don’t have the same interest in your business’ cybersecurity and general welfare. As such, you should always be careful about how permissions are distributed. If possible, hire new employees to take care of the jobs third-party servicers currently carry out for you. This makes the possibility of losing control of identity and access management significantly smaller.
Most people suck at making passwords
To explain, most people don’t inherently suck at making strong passwords; rather, they’re too lazy to properly protect their digital selves.
Which one is quicker: writing down login names and passwords with pen and paper – or whatever you write within physical form, or having a secure program like OneLogin save them for you?
OneLogin’s single sign-on (SSO) feature takes all worrying associated with forgetting passwords and throws it out the window – all while retaining important, private information.
Cybercrime costs, and here’s why it happens so often
Most “hackers” you hear about are actually informed in the practice of guessing popular passwords. Even if an unwanted, unauthorized user does luckily guess your login information, consider using OneLogin for its multifactor authentication (MFA) powers, which require you to subject yourself to multiple forms of login.
It helps. A lot.
