In today’s world, security is a high priority. It’s essential for companies to protect their data. With businesses working from home, data security has never been so important. From healthcare, to financial services, to online retailers and fintech services, day-to-day business operations to interactions with customers and clients, organisations must ensure their communications software supports their data protection requirements.

Businesses being faced with security challenges during the coronavirus crisis resulted in an enormous shift to home-based workers and agents. According to Contact Babel’s latest research, for example, 84% of UK Contact Centres are now operating remotely. Up until very recently, fewer than 4% of agents worked remotely at home on a permanent basis.

Rapid responses to the coronavirus pandemic leave organisations vulnerable to security breaches.  Considerations around cybersecurity, data privacy and user safeguards have come to the forefront. Faced with the need to enable remote work, businesses rushed to find a solution; cloud contact centre, for instance, or telephony with contact centre capabilities and video conferencing. 

The world is going to be very different after COVID-19. Remote working will be the new norm. You need to ensure your organisation is protected from unauthorised access, data breaches and other online threats. 

There are many reasons for businesses wanting to switch to cloud communications platforms. Perhaps traffic to your business is taking off and you need a secure and scalable cloud solution. Or perhaps you want to combine multiple communications apps into a single, unified platform to ensure maximum security?

Security threats are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. A trusted provider should be committed to customers’ privacy and security. When it comes to choosing the right UCaaS provider, what questions should you ask? I think fundamentally the company’s culture plays an important role.

First, what is the company’s approach to security? Do they have a dedicated security function with specialised security engineering, security audit and compliance team, who are also focused on application security and security data?

Second, does the company provide cloud security? Cloud security offers many benefits, including centralised security of the infrastructure, back-end communications platform, enhancement of traffic analysis, streamlining of the monitoring of network events and fewer software and policy updates. It is essential to work with a cloud provider that offers experience with multiple types of security infrastructure, anti-malware, and endpoint detection, and has security analytics for threat detection and cloud threat monitoring. Not to mention service border defences at network and application layers such as firewalls, session border controllers and unified communications threat management for the services you require.

Third, what about their security measures that build into the applications? There are several areas to consider, such as testing, risk management and cyber security governance for their products and services. What standard encryption does the vendor have? 

Unified communications involves multiple endpoints. It’s important to make sure encryption extends beyond data in a data center. Does your intended vendor have independent third-party verification and assessments? 

Fourth, what is their approach to data privacy? Is the vendor General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant? What do they do with your customer data? Are their disclosures clear and transparent? 

Today’s organisations need technology vendors that continuously improve their security capabilities while delivering the services customers require. RingCentral’s cloud-based services are designed to deliver world-class security greater than many traditional on-premises solutions. Frequent security updates are included in the service, meaning you don’t need to hire in-house IT specialists to maintain security on the platform. This is just one feature among the many cost savings of switching to a cloud-based communications system. RingCentral reinvests up to 20% of its revenue back into innovation, driven by a relentless focus on reliability, privacy, security and transparency.