Category: BLOG

Document Management System, Cybersecurity, Digital File Management

Why Hospitals Need a Document Management System

Technological innovations have helped several verticals optimize their performance. For example, CRM software helps the sales and marketing function, LMS software helps the learning and development vertical and a cloud-based HR software helps the human resources department. Likewise, a document management system is what helps hospitals streamline their operations and improve efficiency.

A document management system (DMS) is used to track, manage and store documents, which results in the reduction of paper usage. A DMS is capable of storing records that can be created and modified by different users. It helps hospitals serve their patients much more efficiently.

Having a document management system in a hospital streamlines everything

Having an electronic document management system in hospitals not only helps the administrators and healthcare providers, but also patients on several fronts. It is a software system that organizes and stores different kinds of documents. It streamlines billing processes, allows test result and other form sharing and improves behind the scenes functioning – which results in an overall increase in the hospital’s efficiency in the following ways:

Streamlining the billing process – When people are hospitalized, finance and bills are among the most stressful aspects. The sooner and more correctly patients’ claim forms are submitted, the better and more quickly they get to know what they are up against on the financial front. It can relieve some of the stress of those who are already facing a difficult time.

Since it integrates patient documents, it makes care consistent – When every department in the hospital has access to the same patient files, it can make certain aspects of care consistent. Usually, the healthcare providers verify all the information with the patients, but not everyone is in a condition to spell out all the details all the time. For example, it is difficult for people with PTSD to narrate their experiences to every doctor, nurse and technician each time they see a new caregiver. But with a document management system in place, one note which is accessible to all caregivers can ease the patient’s stress.

Better coordination between labs and results – A document management system coordinates the flow of information from one department to another. Though many hospitals digitally share lab results, working with multiple applications can increase the odds of user error – which also slows the process. A hospital document management system should be easily accessible and accurate.

Improving behind-the-scene functions – Though administrative hiccups don’t affect the patients directly, they can surely impact the overall performance of the hospital. When hospitals streamline their back-end processes, it reduces the stress among staff members. It improves patient care by resolving issues like understaffing or overscheduling. With a hospital document management in place, you can track workflow and patterns – which can improve efficiency. Also, if you want to update pamphlets on after-surgery care, it allows you to do so in a consistent manner, and the changes you make reach everyone throughout the system.

Top five reasons you need a document management system

Administrative costs for hospitals and healthcare clinics in the United States account for over 25% of the total expenditures. A substantial part of the spending is because hospitals do a vast amount of paperwork for record keeping, billing, coding and insurance. Also, every additional visit adds to the volume. Moreover, medical facilities have to maintain all the records for a minimum of 10 years after a patient’s last visit.

Therefore, maintaining digital records and using a document management system has several advantages.

Here are the top five benefits of document management system in hospitals, according to Becker’s Hospital Review:

1- It saves money – A DMS reduces material and equipment, such as paper, printers, ink cartridges, etc. It also reduces the amount of storage space needed. At times, hospitals have to devote floors for record keeping. All patient records stay on the servers – either on-premises or in the cloud. It can also reduce employee costs (fewer are needed), as well as retrieval feels.

2- It also allows greater security and compliance – You can lose or damage paper documents in case of fires, mold, flooding or other types of disasters. With redundant storage features and disaster recovery solutions, your data remains safe and secure at all times. Also, all the files in your system benefit from a detailed chain of custody, in which employee names and timestamps are automatically assigned at each stage of processing.

You can also put in place access rights for sensitive patient data so that only those authorized can access it.

Facilities that use an electronic document management system can easily follow compliance regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

3- It allows faster processing with minimum errors – Physically retrieve paper documents from archives and delivering them to the departments requesting them is a time-consuming process. A digitized document management system reduces retrieval time to seconds – with no physical effort.

Since everyone has access to the same electronic medical record, any department can access the documents without the need to photocopy. Should your DMS allows file segmentation, your billing department can update payment information, and the healthcare workers can update medical data at the same time.

Also, some platforms allow real-time collaboration, in which users can make simultaneous changes to the same record without creating mismatched edits. Every record displays the most recent and accurate information – thereby ensuring fewer errors and redundancies.

4- It improves the patient experience – With a document management system in place, you can improve the overall functioning of your hospital and give your patients a positive experience. When properly implemented, a DMS can lower operating costs, as well as significantly reduce errors, processing times and privacy leaks.

5- It can be done in manageable stages – Using a DMS, it’s possible to start with a small batch of records, and use the subsequent savings to help finance the next stage. Done in this way, you’ll gain productivity and efficiency, allowing your facility to reap ever-increasing gains as you move forward with implementation.

In this time of intense competition among hospitals – as well as an increasing focus on the patient experience and patient privacy – a DMS is a necessity for every healthcare facility.

DocuServe provides robust solutions for every industry, including healthcare. Contact us to learn more.

What is Enterprise Security?

Tags : Cybersecurity Information Security Mobile Security Secure Digital Content

With the threat of cyberattacks looming large in organizations of every size, it is imperative for companies to have foolproof security in place to keep their data safe and secure. But enterprise security is a challenging and broad issue. To reduce and eliminate the risk of unauthorized access to information technology systems and data, you need to have a comprehensive strategy that secures all entry and end points.

Enterprise security comprises the strategies and techniques that companies undertake to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to data, IT systems, and information. The activities in enterprise security include the institutionalization, advancements, change and evaluation of a firm’s enterprise risk management (ERM) and security methods.

Enterprise security administration entails different business units, staff, personnel and officials to work together to secure a company’s digital assets, ensure data loss prevention and safeguard the company’s reputation. Enterprise security activities should be in line with the organization’s compliance requirements, culture and administration strategies. Enterprise security activities include conducting vulnerability and risk analysis tests that are intrinsic to the organization’s business.

Enterprise security is also about devising procedures and strategies that can safeguard the company’s physical assets.

Dealing with the human factor

Though all technological help should be put in place to keep cyber attacks at bay, it is also vital for organizations to understand the human angle in dealing with the security issue.

Humans have broken many barriers when it comes to technology. However, people have a habit of experimenting with technology that at times goes beyond the original intent. Experimentation with technology is good, but this is also the point where security problems begin. As organizations embrace technology, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to predict all the threats and vulnerabilities that come to fore in the process. This is what makes enterprise security reactive by nature, and that is why protecting the system or asset becomes extremely difficult.

Also, security has become a problematic issue because of economic reasons. The market these days has become extremely saturated and fragmented. Enterprise security companies claim to offer almost identical solutions to everyone in the market. In addition, buyers are more interested in getting a solution that helps them meet their compliance norms rather than address their security problems. Also, buyers are ready to purchase solutions that are not effective, and sellers continue to market their product as if their product is infallible. Both buyers and sellers are operating in an environment of uncertainty, which adds to the enterprise security problem.

Two of the other issues that further complicates enterprise security are the cloud and the internet of things (IoT) because they expand the total attack surface.

How can companies approach security at a strategic level?

The fact is that there are countless moving parts in enterprise security. Since the challenge of enterprise security is so dynamic, pledging technological, organizational and financial resources to one specific strategy can prove counterproductive. Despite the fluid condition that governs the market forces and recent developments in IT/OT infrastructure, one factor that remains constant throughout is that all the cyber attacks are carried out by human beings.

Irrespective of the motives and methodologies of the attackers, be it rogue actors, industry competitors, corporate insiders, organized crime syndicates or nation-states, they can only operate within limits dictated by human behavior.

To effectively address potential insider threats, organizations should have full visibility into every employee, customer, and contractor. And, to address external threats, organizations should proactively try to identify attackers and their recognized patterns of behavior.

The future of enterprise security

Mobile security has always been an issue with enterprise security and will remain so in 2019 as well. The future of enterprise security vis-à-vis mobile presents a characteristically scary scenario. Mobile threats are on the rise and businesses need to be mindful of this development. Here is a complete lowdown of mobile security threats – present and future.

According to David Slight, president of Quora Consulting in North America, security, security, and security will dominate enterprise mobility in 2019.

Some of the main security problems that mobilized enterprise will face in 2019 are:

WPA-3 – WPA-2 which has been in use for over a decade has encountered vulnerabilities in the last two years; hence WPA-3 was introduced last year. The standard rollout of WPA-3 will take place this year which means a lot of work needs to be done that includes an upgrade to the 192-bit encryption in WPA-2. An enterprise will have to update its RADIUS service to use this enhancement. For public networks, WPA-3 will use a new encryption format called OWE which prevents snooping and session hijacking. But Wi-Fi access points need to be upgraded to support the WPA-3 which is what will make a mobile device secure.

Home office security is a big problem – In 2019, the home will become a more popular attack vector. The problem on this front is escalating because of the rise in the popularity of smart devices and home offices. As these devices are used for both private as well as business purposes, it makes the devices insecure which will be a big challenge to tackle in 2019.

The 5G network rollout will be a challenge – 2019 will see the rollout of 5G. And, like with every new technology, security will remain the main concern. Though the 5G mobile devices will not be widely available in 2019, securing these devices is going to be challenging and expensive. As more 5G IoT devices will connect to the 5G network directly without a Wi-Fi router, it will make devices more vulnerable to direct attack.

The IoT also poses threats – There are billions of endpoints in the IoT. Onboard security is often compromised to keep down the cost of each endpoint and to power them. What worsens the problem is that the IoT devices are available to hackers readily. Since IoT offers several loopholes because the systems are primeval and vulnerable to attacks, it is advisable to hire outside penetration companies to identify the weak spot to avoid breaches.

Attackers think globally, but act locally – Too many employees have a careless attitude towards workplace security, which makes the job of an attacker easy. The threat is likely to come from the network (compromising a single Wi-Fi connection) or phishing.

Does bring your own device (BYOD) affect enterprise data security?

Though security professionals are increasingly becoming open to embracing BYOD policies, yet businesses are not too confident when it comes to the data security of employees’, laptops, tablets, and personal phones. A recent Bitglass study reveals that out of the 400 IT experts surveyed, 30% were hesitant to embrace BYOD because of security concerns like data leakage, shadow IT, and unauthorized access to data. With GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation and other data privacy mandates kicking in, it has become vital for the organizations to monitor and protect their data.

There is a growing acceptance of personal devices in the enterprise – Using personal devices for work was not the norm just a few years back. Though employees used their personal computers and laptops to access company networks, as a concept BYOD was not prevalent in organizations back then.

Mobile threats are on the rise, yet security has not changed much – Since the mobile devices are relatively insecure, it is not surprising that criminals target is so often and with precision. It is not difficult for criminals to gain access to both corporate data as well as personal data from an easy-to-breach mobile device. Mobile device management tools and remote wiping, basic security precautions, are put in place only by 50% of those surveyed in the Bitglass study. Also, many security teams don’t have clear visibility about the apps used on personal devices.

Though the federal government’s use of mobile technology is improving, many communication paths remain insecure which makes the whole ecosystem vulnerable to attacks (a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) study).

Similar security loopholes are present in the private sector as well. Mobile devices are considered the riskiest point of intrusion to corporate networks.

Put in place smart policies for BYOD security – You need to ensure that your employees use personal devices safely and securely. BYOD is a beneficial yet risky practice. Before a company adopts BYOD, it should put in place a smart BYOD policy so that their data remains safe and secure. When it comes to BYOD, here is what you need to do to keep your enterprise data safe and secure:

Find out whether your employees need to use personal devices for doing their work. Those who don’t need regular access to networks or employees who work remotely should be left out of the BYOD program because it is difficult to monitor their devices.

Next, encourage your employees to update their operating systems and security software regularly. Make it mandatory for employees to use corporate security software on personal devices. And, if they are connecting their devices to the enterprise network, they should follow the company’s security protocols.

As you can see, enterprise security is a complex goal to achieve. DocuServe has the industry experience and solutions to protect company data to ensure that all your data remains safe and secure. From securing your data in the cloud and protecting your corporate secrets to keeping your mobile devices safe, DocuServe is a one-stop shop. Contact us to learn more about our industry-leading solutions.

Digital Documents, Secure Document Management, Cybersecurity Company

Electronic Signatures in Document Management

As the majority of organizations now conduct business electronically, securing digital content is essential – as discussed in our blog post, “Secure Digital Content: How it’s Done.” And with the start of the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on May 25, 2018, data privacy has taken on even greater importance – the implications of which were covered in our blog post, “Document Management with GDPR.” The pivotal role of electronic signatures in secure document management for companies that “go paperless” deserves recognition.

So, what is an electronic signature in data management, how does it work, why should you adopt it, and what is the legal standing of electronic signatures?

What is an electronic signature, and how does it work?

Also called a digital signature, an electronic signature is any way of signing a non-printed document. It can be done with your finger, mouse or stylus. It also can be done by typing your name, accompanied by some proof of identification, such as the last four digits of your Social Security number.

Writing for PandaDoc, SEO specialist Eugene Zaremba makes the distinction between an electronic signature (also known as an eSignature) and a digital signature. The former “… doesn’t necessarily mean legally binding because it refers to any online signature, which can include a copy-paste of your own signature.”

However, Zaremba notes, “The somewhat less commonly used term digital signature is actually more of a correct term. Digital signature or standard electronic signature is actually a coded, encrypted, legally binding digital footprint. The digital signature is made of unique encoded messages — one for each signee — that join together to make a complete, legally binding, standard electronically signed document.”

Just like handwritten signatures, digital signatures are unique to each signer. An algorithm is used to generate two long numbers, which are known as keys. Of the two keys, one is public and the other is private.

With the signer’s private key – which is always kept securely by the signer – the signature is created when a signer electronically signs a document. Acting like code, the mathematical algorithm creates data that matches the signed document (called a hash) and encrypts it. The encrypted data that results from this process is the digital signature. The electronic sign also bears the time when the document is signed. The digital signature becomes invalid if any change in the document is made after it is signed.

Why your company should be using electronic signatures

In his article for Inc., tech writer Larry Alton covers the advantages of electronic signatures. Benefits include:

Ease of use – One solution provider Alton references allows the user to upload a document, declare signers and recipients, and deliver a secure link to the recipient. The recipient signs the document to complete the process.

High level of security – Even more secure than traditional paper documents, electronic signatures not only contain a signature, but also traceable information on who signed the document, where the document was signed and when it was signed.

Convenience – In our geographically dispersed world, your business probably deals with clients and vendors in in various cities, states, and countries. Electronic signatures allow remote authentication, making it a convenient option.

Faster turnaround time – Businesses that don’t use electronic signatures have to scan, print, sign and send documents to one party, then repeat the process for each of the other parties in the transaction or agreement. With electronic signatures, all parties can sign within seconds.

Lower cost – The amount of money saved in paper, postage, mailing supplies and time make electronic signatures more cost-effective in the long run.

The legal standing of electronic signatures

In 1999, the Uniform Law Commission drafted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), which provides a legal framework for the use of electronic signatures. It has been adopted in 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Exceptions are Illinois, New York and Washington. In 2000, the United States passed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN Act) to facilitate the adoption of electronic signatures.

However, questions regarding the legal standing of electronic signatures remain among many business people – who are justifiably warry of an unscrupulous client trying to get out of a contract by claiming it isn’t legally binding. Both of these acts confer the same legal status upon electronic signatures as given to those signed by hand on paper documents.

As outlined by SignEasy, an electronic signature must meet the following requirements per the two acts to make it legally binding:

A clear intent to sign – Just as with a hand-signed signature, electronic signatures are valid only if a user demonstrates a clear intent to sign. It means that you should also have the option of declining the electronic signature request.

Prior consent – The concerned parties must express or imply their consent of doing business electronically.

Clear attribution of signature – This can be determined based on the context and circumstances under which the document was signed.

Association of signature with the record – An electronic signature should be connected to the document that is to be signed.

Record retention – According to the ESIGN Act, the validity of the electronic signature is legitimate as long as the records accurately reflect the agreement and can be reproduced in a court of law as and when required. Leading electronic signature platforms provide users with a fully-executed signed copy, or allow you to download a copy of the signed document.

Making digital management safe and secure, DocuServe offers industry-leading cloud-based solutions for every aspect of your organization. With DocuServe, you get complete control over your content, right down to the document level. Contact us to learn more.

Mobile Security Threats – Present and Future

As the number of mobile devices increases around the world, keeping the digital content safe and secure is becoming a challenge. With cybercrimes on the rise, data breaches these days are becoming a norm rather than an exception. Mobile security, therefore, is a serious concern, and it is important to know the security threats that can affect your mobile devices. Just as viruses and spyware can infect your computers, mobile devices are also susceptible. Mobile threats can be categorized as follows: application-based threats, web-based threats, network-based threats and physical threats.

What is an application-based threat?

Downloading an app can bring in several types of security threats. It is not easy to detect a malicious app because they look fine on a download site, but these apps are specifically designed to carry out malicious activity. Application-based threats can be categorized as follows:

Malware – Once downloaded and installed on your phone, malware can send unwanted messages to your contacts, make changes to your phone bill or hand over control of your device to the hacker – all without your knowledge.

Spyware – This is software used to gather information about a person or organization, which can later be used for activities like financial fraud or identity theft. Phone call history, user location, contact list, text messages, browser history, private photos and emails are common data targeted by spyware.

Privacy threats – These are applications that might not be malicious, but collect or use sensitive information like contact lists, location and other personally identifiable information that can be used for fraudulent purposes.

Vulnerable applications – These are apps that contain errors that can be used for malicious purposes. Vulnerabilities like these allow the attacker to take control of your device by accessing sensitive information, stopping a particular service from proper functioning, carrying out undesirable actions or downloading apps on your device – again, without your knowledge.

What are web-based threats?

Since mobile devices are always connected to the internet and often used to access web-based services, web-based threats pose a serious threat to mobile devices. Some of these are:

Phishing scams – Phishing links are sent through email, text messages, Twitter, and Facebook, connecting you to websites that are designed to extract information (like passwords or account numbers) by tricking you. It is not easy to ascertain whether these messages and sites are fraudulent, as they very closely resemble the legitimate websites.

Drive-by downloads – It is a program that automatically gets downloaded to your device when you visit a web page. And, in some cases, the application starts automatically even without your knowledge.

Browser exploits – This is a form of malicious code that takes advantage of a flaw in your mobile web browser or software. It is typically launched by Flash player, image viewer or PDF reader. Sometimes when you visit a web page that is unsafe, you can put in motion a browser exploit that installs malware or performs other unwanted actions on your device.

What are network-based threats?

Mobile devices support both cellular networks as well as local wireless networks, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. These networks can host the following threats:

Network exploits – It takes advantage of the vulnerabilities of the mobile operating system or other software that operates on cellular or local networks. Once connected to your device, can malware can be installed on your phone without your knowledge.

Wi-Fi sniffing – When proper security measures are not taken by websites and applications, they send unencrypted data across the network, which can be intercepted by cyber criminals as it travels.

What are physical threats?

Simply stated, the main physical threat is the possibility of your mobile device being stolen. Most of our important personal information is there – as well as sensitive corporate information, for those who conduct business on their mobile device. In this case, theft of a mobile device leaves your company’s sensitive proprietary information vulnerable, as well as the account and/or personal information of clients and vendors – not to mention the resulting PR nightmare once the resulting data breach is made public.

The current state of mobile security

Kyle Johnson – site editor for BrianMadden – provides insight on the overall severity of mobile security threats. He focused on findings in Google’s “Android Security 2017 Year In Review” and statistics from mobile security vendor Lookout. While the Google report can be accessed via the link provided in the previous sentence for those who are interested, Johnson’s take-home summary states that the frequency in which Android users encounter a potentially harmful app (PHA) are as follows:

“In 2016, the annual probability that a user downloaded a PHA from Google Play was 0.04% and we reduced that by 50% in 2017 for an annual average of 0.02%.”
“In 2017, on average 0.09% of devices that exclusively used Google Play had one or more PHAs installed. The first three quarters in 2018 averaged a lower PHA rate of 0.08%.”

Regarding Lookout, Johnson reported it offered a wide range of data for both Android and iOS mobile operating systems. According to Lookout, 56% of their users (both consumer and enterprise) between January to September 2018 clicked on a phishing link through their mobile devices. There has been a steady growth of 85% every year since 2011 in which users fell for mobile phishing links.

As far as app-based threats are concerned, it is 4.7% for enterprise Android devices and 0.1% for IOS devices. While 20% of the app-based threats are Trojans, the other 80% are adware and other app-based threats.

However, concludes Johnson, “One thing that remains top of mind while examining the data is that we want to know how many data breach incidents can be directly attributed to mobile devices. Unfortunately, this is apparently difficult to determine.”

Mobile security projections for 2019

The Global Security Threat Outlook 2019 was recently released by the Information Security Forum which details the security risks and encumbrances to mitigate the risks.

Here are top four security threats businesses should expect in 2019:

Ransomware and cybercrime are expected to become more sophisticated – Though the ransomware attack frequency has decreased in 2018, the attacks have become more potent and targeted. Instead of indiscriminately attacking any computer, crypto jacking malware is being used to target enterprise networks. According to the report, it is not easy to calculate damages from ransomware, but still, it claims that globally more than $5 billion were lost from ransomware in 2017. The report also cautions that ransomware on mobile devices is set to increase in the future.

The weak link in security is smart devices – As smart devices such as personal assistants on smartphones and internet-connected devices become even smarter, the security threat is set to increase. According to the report, these devices are security black boxes, and it is difficult for organizations to keep track of the information that is leaving the network or what is secretly being captured and transmitted by these smart devices. When breaches occur, organizations will be held responsible by regulators and customers for inadequate data protection.

It is difficult for legislation to keep up with the security realities – Unfortunately, our elected lawmakers possess little – if any – knowledge about today’s technologies. Therefore, security best practices legislation either comes in too late or not at all. At times, sweeping changes are made without providing prior information to corporations, which makes it difficult for them to implement the compliance norms. According to the report, it becomes difficult for the organizations to keep abreast of such developments that could also impact their business model. It will particularly impact cloud implementations, as understanding the location of cloud data is a difficult task.

Supply chain security is a hopeless case – According to the report, organizations in 2019 will find that ensuring the security of their supply chain is a hopeless case. Irrespective of the supply chain provider, organizations should focus on managing their key data and knowing where and how the data has been shared across various channels and boundaries. In 2019, it will be important to compartmentalize access to data and fingerprinting data shared with third parties to detect leaks.

If businesses and individuals don’t adopt ways and means to secure their proprietary content, confidential company secrets, or personal data, their data can be compromised by hackers pretty easily. Whether it is cryptography to secure your data in the cloud, video encryption to protect your corporate training materials, or content encryption solution to protect your mobile devices, companies (and individuals) these days have various options to keep their information safe and secure from prying eyes.

What you need to do is make a smart move and select a reliable data protection company like DocuServe to ensure that all your data remains safe and secure. From securing your data in the cloud and protecting your corporate secrets to keeping your mobile devices safe, DocuServe is a one-stop shop. Contact us to learn more about our industry-leading solutions.

Document Management with GDPR

With the start of the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on May 25 of this year, data privacy has a new meaning – and a new global respect. GDPR sent many American companies scrambling to achieve compliance as it implements sweeping changes on businesses that deal with customer data – which may even include yours. In other words, GDPR compliance isn’t just for EU-based companies.

GDPR Basics

The GDPR was established to protect the personal data of EU residents and affects any business that has customers located in the EU. There is no restriction based on location, company size or scope of business, meaning any entity with an internet presence will be affected. Fines for non-compliance will be high. Data protection watchdogs can impose a fine of up to £20,000,000, or four percent of your total annual worldwide turnover. Any service offered to an EU resident – regardless of whether the service is free and which country hosts its servers – has to play by the rules. For all the information on the GDPR, visit its website, GDPREU.org.

A Major Difference

At issue is the major differences in the approach to collecting personal data in the United States and the EU. In the U.S., personal information is often collected as a matter of course, with only an ‘opt-out’ offered to consumers. By contrast, GDPR requires that in order to collect information from EU data subjects, an affirmative ‘opt in’ consent must be obtained that clearly specifies how the data will be used. Privacy policies must match.

Once information is obtained, the EU data subject has the right to request that his or her data be deleted; that is, to invoke the right ‘to be forgotten.’ Incorrect information must be corrected upon request. These rights may seem simple enough, but when data is held in multiple locations, developing a process to handle such requests could be difficult. As an organization, you need to know how GDPR will affect your paper documents. This is where a document management system (DMS) can come in to help make your business GDPR-compliant.

A document management system manages, stores, and tracks electronic documents and electronic images. With the use of document management scanning, paper-based information can be captured and managed in a much more secure and efficient way. You can use a DMS to organize and control documents across your organization, which helps make your business GDPR-compliant.

With data breaches on the rise, businesses can’t do without content security. As a business, you need to protect your company information and customer details. Be it your company information, customer information, financial details, research, training, intellectual capital, corporate secrets, or securing your mobile data for BYOD purposes, you need to make sure that your data remains secure, both at rest and in motion.

Also, it’s difficult for companies to know how many paper documents actually exist. Duplication on photocopier, removal of documents from your office and insecure disposal of documents can all lead to the existence of several copies of the same document, which is again a problem according to GDPR standards.

When thinking about GDPR compliance, here are some questions offered by YourDMS:

What kinds of documents you possess, and do they include personal information?
Are you able to find documents easily?
How long does it take to locate them?
Are all of your documents stored in one place?
Are you sure you have all the documents?
Are you aware of the number of copies that exist for each document?
Can your documents get into wrong hands?

You should keep in mind three things with document management and GDPR. Here are three things with regards to document management and GDPR, courtesy of Create Ts and Cs:

Encryption – A ransomware virus can easily access your organization’s data, which could include your staff records as well as customer bank details. But, with the DMS in place, all of your files are encrypted on entry, and held as images. A DMS ensures that your data and documents are kept safe even at the time of an attack. If you want to be GDPR-compliant, you need to use a DMS because it encrypts your data.

Role-based access control – According to the GDPR standard, you need to make sure that information and data are locked down. It should not only be kept safe from the outside world, but also within the organization. Your employees should not have access to all the information; it should only be need-based. You don’t need your sales manager to know your customer’s bank details. You can put in place rules with a DMS which can restrict access control.

Retention control – As an organization, you also need to keep in mind that you store data for an appropriate period. You cannot and should not hold on to the information beyond the stipulated time. When you start using a DMS, it makes sure that it stores personal data correctly, and flags documents that need deletion.

How DocuServe document management can help with GDPR

As mentioned earlier, an efficient DMS can help you comply with the GDPR. That is where DocuServe’s document management comes into the picture. DocuServe is a secure cloud-based content distribution and protection system that can keep your digital content safe. DocuServe provides you with complete control over your content, right up to the document level. Because DocuServe is a cloud-based technology, your documents, video, and other shared files don’t exist on the user’s device – which makes it easy for you to withdraw and manage access – also helping your organization’s GDPR compliance.

DocuServe ensures content security because the content is encrypted between the application and the operating system and within the document, which ensures greater security. This is another GDPR requirement which states that an organization should ensure that personal data is kept secure at all the times. With DocuServe, you can delete, eliminate, and remove your data as and when required – another important GDPR requirement.

Other ways in which DocuServe ensures GDPR compliance include:

Security (including mobile) at rest and in motion.
The right to be forgotten by deleting or removing personal data on request.
Privacy by design (everyone in the organization works in the same way and to the same procedures).
Data retention (securely delete information in part or incompletely).

DocuServe has the ideal DMS solution to help your business achieve GDPR compliance. Contact us today.

Predicative analytics, cloud services, human resource management software, improve employee engagement, HR automation,

Cloud Based HR Software – What You Need to Know

Innovations in technologies have helped businesses improve performance in many areas. Be it the marketing field, learning and development sector, or human resource management vertical, you now have software for every function that can help enhance the performance of your employees. Couple this with the rise of cloud services, and you get a potent combination that can take your organization to the next level. No matter your location, cloud computing has opened many opportunities for businesses in all verticals.

For example, there is customer relationship management software that helps businesses develop a strong bond with their customers. There’s also a learning management system that has changed the landscape of learning and development. Our August blog post covered how a learning management service can benefit your business, which goes into detail regarding this topic.

Add to this list a learning content management system that helps the learning and development teams manage the content that your workforce needs to use – as discussed in our July 2017 blog post, Introducing the Digital Age of Enterprise Learning. And, finally, there is human resource (HR) management software that helps your organization save money, improve employee engagement and improve your organization’s overall performance.

Cloud-based human resource management – the economical approach

HR employees have a lot to handle. For example, they spend a good amount of time in onboarding activities. According to Laurel Deppen, reporting for TechRepublic, automating the process can save your organization around 50 percent over traditional methods. With strategic software in place, you can increase employee engagement, retain them over the long term, and improve their productivity and performance.

HR employees perform crucial functions in every organization. But, if they continually spend time in non-productive administrative activities, they can’t effectively add value to your organization. HR software automates many of these processes, which gives your HR staff enough time to focus on strategic initiatives.

Electronic signatures can also benefit your organization in many ways besides being easy on the budget. For example, organizations invest time in distributing, signing and tracking important documents. Switching to e-signature software can save up to 40 work hours per month – as well as reduce the cost of paper, printing and postage, not to mention the environmental impact.

Similarly, a cloud-based HR solution can save money in time-off management. Keeping track of employees’ time-off on a spreadsheet is a time-consuming job and requires careful attention, as well. According to BambooHR, an average employee takes up to three days of unreported paid time off every year due to poor tracking system of the organization. With automated time-off tracking, it is easy for the organizations to track employee absence. This costs businesses around 6 percent of annual payroll. It improves the performance of your employees, and the result is that your customers remain happy with you.

Improving employee engagement

Predicative analytics, cloud services, human resource management software, improve employee engagement, HR automation, According to Scott Wallask, Editorial Director for TechTarget, cloud-based HR has the potential to improve employee engagement. Wallask focuses on apps such as YouEarnedIt, a SaaS-based platform that measures employee engagement on such factors as what they consider to be their most valuable skills – which combine with real-time data to improve the culture of the organization.

YouEarnedIt is based on the fact that employees are mainly concerned about four core areas: daily work purpose, connections with managers and colleagues, appreciation of individual contributions and team efforts, and their influence on co-workers and communities.

Based on the real-time feedback on these core issues of the employees, members can give points to their colleagues for bringing about positive changes and being good leaders. Among other rewards, the points collected by the awardees can be used to buy gift cards or to spend time with their team. The level of an employee’s happiness and engagement can be deduced not by the amount of time they spend with colleagues, and if they buy gift cards.

Help with predictive analytics, turnover risks and meeting diversity goals

With the core systems now firmly settled in the cloud, HR leaders can expect a surge of innovations in their vertical. As Sarah Fister Gale writes in her article for Workforce, “The agility of the cloud means technology teams can deliver new features and interactions quickly and seamlessly. Cloud-based HR systems also mean vendors can implement new iterations faster and with a lot less hassle.”

While actual predictive analytics for workforce management is still in the future, some data analytics capabilities are now offered by several vendors. Predictive analytics has the potential to offer a wide range of insights to organizations – such as training advice for career development, meeting diversity goals and turnover risks.

Vendors take advantage of the huge number of databases that are stored in the public cloud to improve the systems. The public cloud is home to masses of workforce data critical for creating valuable algorithms which is what is used by the computers to analyze the data. You need to train the algorithms on large data sets to decipher the relevant information.

Because these algorithms can tap more data sets, they can offer more targeted insights. For example, predictive analysis can very effectively be used to retain the most talented employees. A single system can review employees’ overtime log sheets, their LinkedIn behavior and their spending on travel to determine stressed-out employees who are likely to quit. This data can then be used by the HR department to find incentives to retain them.

You need strong vendor partnerships to understand training algorithms – one that understands the technology and methods of delivering actionable information. DocuServe provides cloud-based content distribution and protection solutions for organizations of every size. Contact us to learn what we can offer.

Cryptography in the Cloud – What You Need to Know

Cloud technology has rapidly been adopted by organizations of all sizes – from Fortune 500 corporations to plucky start-ups. And no wonder. By eliminating, or greatly reducing, the need to store applications on in-house servers, the start-up can successfully compete on the Fortune 500 corporations’ playing field. However, the risk of data theft or compromise in the cloud environment always looms near – which is why an increasing number of organizations are also implementing cryptography protocols to provide essential data security.

Cloud technology, cryptography, and security

Various approaches are used to extend cryptography to cloud data. One approach is to encrypt the data before uploading it to the cloud. This method is advantageous because the data is encrypted before it leaves the company environment, and the data can only be decrypted by authorized staff members who have access to the decryption keys.

Other cloud storage services can encrypt data when they receive it, which ensures the data they store and transmit is protected by encryption by default. While some cloud providers offer encryption natively, others allow “bring your own” encryption. Though the data encryption occurs in the cloud provider’s environment, customers must maintain the control keys that keep their data secure.

Even if some cloud services are not offering encryption capabilities, they should use encrypted connections such as SSL or HTTPS to make sure that the data is protected in transit. A complete platform for cloud security and encryption should provide robust access controls and key management capabilities.

How cryptography keeps your data secure

Cryptography expert Ralph Spencer Poore explained in an interview with Bank Info Security that because it is not possible to physically control the storage of information in the cloud, the best way to ensure data protection both in motion and at rest is to store it cryptographically, with users maintaining control of the cryptographic keys.

Poore discussed the unique challenges that need to be addressed before selecting a cloud provider. For example, cryptographic implementations can have jurisdictional limitations and potential liability issues because the cloud has the potential of being international, and cryptographic technology by most nations is considered to be a restrictive category. This is of greater importance since the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect on May 25 of this year.

There are two types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Described in basic terms, symmetric encryption uses a single key that needs to be shared among the people who need to receive the message, while asymmetrical encryption uses a public key and a private key to encrypt and decrypt messages when communicating. Symmetric encryption is an old technique, while asymmetric encryption is relatively new.

Cryptography and key management

learn how key management in cloud cryptography works Key management is the management of cryptographic keys in a cryptosystem, which includes the generation, use, storage, destruction and replacement of keys. Key management includes cryptographic protocol design, key servers, user procedure, and other relevant protocols. It concerns keys at the user level, either between the users or systems.

As an increasing number of businesses move their sensitive data to the IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and cloud services provider environment, strong encryption key management has become more essential than ever before. There exist key management solutions for traditional cloud services and SaaS, as well as for public cloud services.

Businesses are now spending billions of dollars on SaaS offerings around the world. Several SaaS providers offer encryption to their powerful applications, but keeping your sensitive data secure is ultimately your responsibility, and you can do it with key management in compliance with data security and privacy mandates. Data separation from keys is a must for many compliance mandates and is also recommended by the Cloud Security Alliance among best security practices.

Keeping your company’s data secure in the clouds need not be a daunting task. DocuServe is a cloud-based digital data protection company providing services that include cloud-based document management, content encryption and distribution, and digital media replication and encryption. Contact us for secure, cloud-based content distribution and protection.

LMS tools, learning management service, learning management system, employee training, train tools, corporate training tools

How a Learning Management Service Can Benefit Your Business

Businesses all over the world are adopting ways to deliver effective learning programs to their employees to help increase user engagement, productivity and retention. Looking after the learning and training needs of your employees is central to the success of every organization. Companies these days want to create a robust platform for corporate training that can deliver effective corporate training programs to a wider audience. And that is where a learning management system (LMS) fits the bill.

A learning management system can offer many benefits to organizations of all sizes. But first, let’s define what an LMS is all about.

What is an LMS?

An LMS is an enterprise-wide application that enhances the flow of information to managers. As described by Asha Pandey, CMD and Chief Learning Strategist at EI Design, it can manage, track, regulate, monitor and deliver learning programs to a wide audience. In addition to delivering fully automated online training, an LMS can support hybrid training models like blended learning and the flipped classroom approach. Also, an LMS solution can deliver training content, assignments and tests to employees, track their progress, manage recordkeeping and offer support on a continuous basis.

Benefits of adopting an LMS

The online revolution has altered our lives in many ways. The way we communicate, shop, and even learn and train have changed for the better. eLearning is an effective way of delivering course material in a classroom or training room environment. eLearning software solutions allow organizations to deliver corporate training programs and courses online, or other platforms.

How an LMS improves learning

It keeps track of learning – Employee development and meeting all the compliance norms are the two key factors that concern every organization. With an LMS in place, you don’t have to worry about these factors, as it tracks who has taken the training and how well they performed.
It reminds you about retraining – Learning and training should be a continuous process if you want your employees to remain up-to-date on all developments. An LMS can keep you informed on the last training taken by your employees, and the upcoming retraining schedule.
It provides real-time reporting – An LMS can track the progress of your employees accurately and provide comprehensive reports in real time.
It offers on-demand learning – With an LMS in place, your employees have around-the-clock access to training materials. They also have the option of revisiting the courses if they want to review the material.
It allows anytime, anywhere learning – mLearning – or mobile learning – is a growing trend, with organizations now delivering training courses on such mobile devices as smartphones and tablets.

How an LMS benefits your organization

Helps improve your employees’ performance – With an LMS in place, you can access eLearning courses on demand. It keeps your employees current on all recent developments and compliance norms, which helps improve their overall performance.
It speeds the process of compliance training – Bringing new hires up to speed faster is another advantage. Even for established employees, an LMS helps get everyone on board simultaneously when organizational changes occur, or new compliance regulations are established.
It reduces cost – As organizing and conducting face-to-face training is costly, an LMS helps reduce your overall training cost.
It helps multiple site deployment – You can conduct training at different locations without concerns about training consistency and uniformity. The same message is delivered across all locations, and everyone has access to the same material.
Everyone gets a chance to attend the training – Employees have the flexibility to schedule their training to their convenience – either completing the session at once, or as they have time, depending upon their workflow.
It can align with your organization’s learning needs – An LMS is a powerful corporate training tool that takes into consideration your organization’s learning needs. You can train your employees for new initiatives easily, consistently and effectively, and measure the impact of learning.

What to look for in an LMS

When you buy LMS software for your organization, you need to make sure that it offers features that keep your employees engaged. If the LMS you purchase lacks compelling functionalities, it will be difficult to generate user engagement.

Software Advice conducted a survey of full-time employees to learn which popular LMS features they would like to use the most. A summary of the findings were reported by Brian Westfall, Senior Content Analyst for Software Advice.

Micro-learning engages more than half of employees – Because 58% of those surveyed said they would like to engage more with the training content if it was broken up into shorter lessons, micro-learning is a growing trend.
Gamification – In the survey, 35% of the employees said that real-life rewards based on the progress of learning would be the top gamification incentive for using their organization’s LMS. This is another trend that is quickly spreading. LMS systems have incorporated many video game-like functions, such as leaderboards, badges and point systems.
Social learning modules, such as discussion boards and content sharing – In the survey, 24% of respondents said that the discussion board – followed by content sharing (23%) – would be the social learning module that engages them the most with their company’s online learning tools. Another popular trend in online learning is the surge in social learning due to the rise of the social media in the last decade.
Mobile access – In the survey, employees were asked whether they would be more comfortable using corporate training software on their mobile devices. Almost half of them (48%) said they are more likely to use an LMS on their mobile devices, but surprisingly 39% of them said that mobile access would not make any difference to them.

If a learning management system is what you are looking for, DocuServe has solutions that will help you produce, manage and distribute your eLearning content without the need to hire an expensive in-house content development team. Our comprehensive LMS tool can take your learning and training standard to the next level. Contact us for all your eLearning needs, and increase the engagement of your team members.

What is PaaS – Platform as a Service

Cloud computing has recently experienced tremendous growth, and the upward trend is set to continue in the coming years. Businesses and organizations of every kind have been quick to adopt this practice of using a network of remote servers rather than a single server to store, manage and process data – opening an exciting world of possibilities for innovation and growth.

As Susan Ward notes in The Balance Small Business, cloud computing is especially advantageous for small businesses, as it gives them access to data and applications from anywhere at anytime from any mobile device, at a reasonable price – without having to purchase software. This greatly helps level the playing field, allowing small and mid-size businesses to compete with larger enterprises.

Cloud services consist of three main types: software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). As this blog has covered the first two in previous months, we focus this month on PaaS.

De-mystifying PaaS – what it is and what it features

• PaaS is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run and manage applications without the complexity (and expense) of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app. PaaS can be delivered in three ways:

• Public cloud service from a provider, where the customer controls software deployment with minimal configuration options, and the provider provides the networks, servers, storage, operating system (OS), middleware (e.g., Java runtime, .NET runtime, integration, etc.), database and other services to host the customer’s application.

• Private service (software or appliance) behind a firewall.

• Software deployed on a public infrastructure as a service.

In addition, notes John Meegan of IBM, PaaS systems typically build in security and data-protection features, including resilience capabilities such as replication and backups. This can improve security and reduce the need for in-house security skills. Meegan continues:

“The provision of sophisticated, off-the-shelf capabilities as services enables the rapid creation and evolution of applications that address business requirements. This is especially important when considering mobile and web applications that include social and Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities.

“Business applications typically require integration and involve aggregation of data and services from multiple existing systems. PaaS systems usually feature prebuilt integration and aggregation components to speed and simplify necessary development work.”

Dan Juengst of Red Hat OpenShift discusses PaaS in the video “What is a Platform as a Service (PaaS)?”

The powerful benefits of PaaS

Meegan lists the broad benefits of PaaS:

Scalability, including rapid allocation and deallocation of resources with a pay-as-you-use model (noting that the use of individual resources can vary greatly over the life cycle of an application).
Reduced capital expenditure.
Reduced lead times with on-demand availability of resources.
Self-service with reduced administration costs.
Reduced skill requirements.
Support of team collaboration.
Ability to add new users quickly.

How PaaS works

PaaS does not replace all IT infrastructure needs; instead, you rely on the service provider for some vital services like Java development and application hosting. The service provider builds and then supplies a robust and conducive environment so that the user can install data sets and applications.

Several of the PaaS products help in the software development. PaaS platforms offer many facilities, such as compute and storage infrastructure, version management and text editing. They also offer compiling and testing services which help your team create new software efficiently and quickly.

Looking ahead to what’s next for PaaS

Shawn Stamp, Practice Director of UpperEdge – a Boston-based IT advisory company – anticipates PaaS to become more robust to the point where tech savvy users – as opposed to traditional programmers – will be able to develop/manage increasingly feature-rich custom applications.

“The addition of AI to PaaS offerings will help to enable this,” Stamp says.

A word of caution

You should carefully select the PaaS service provider after evaluating the downtime and lock-in risks. If there are frequent outages, it can affect your productivity. Provider lock-in is the other concern where it is difficult for the users to migrate many of the services and data from one PaaS product to another.

Another potential issue is the internal changes that a provider makes to the PaaS product. If the PaaS service provider decides to stops supporting some programing language or plans to use another set of development tools, it can become a problem for the user. You need to follow the PaaS provider’s service roadmap to know if or how it will affect your capabilities.

Prominent PaaS service providers

There are many PaaS service providers offering the tools required to build enterprise applications. Evaluate those that meet your organization’s technical requirements, then make a careful selection to prevent issues in such areas as language and service.

Google App Engine – This is a cloud computing platform that helps you develop and host web applications in data centers managed by Google. It uses and supports such languages as Java, Python, Go and PHP.

Microsoft Azure – Supports application development in such languages as Note.js, PHP, Java, Ruby, Python, and .NET. It allows developers to use Visual Studio and software developer kits to develop and deploy applications.

Red Hat Open Shift –PaaS offering that can be used for creating open source applications using a variety of languages, components and databases. You can get on-demand access to Open Shift and build, deploy and manage scalable applications.

AWS Compute Cloud (EC2) – Allows a developer to create, deploy, manage, and scale web applications and services that are developed with languages such as .NET, Ruby, Python, Go, Node.js, PHP, Docker, and Java on common servers like Apache, Nginx, etc.

Heroku Enterprises (Salesforce platform) – Support such languages as Java, Python, Ruby, Node.js, Cloture and Scala. It offers Unix-style container computing options that run processes in an isolated environment.

No matter which PaaS provider you choose, keeping your company’s data secure is always the first priority. DocuServe is a cloud-based digital data protection company providing services that include cloud-based document management, content encryption and distribution, and digital media replication and encryption. Contact us today to learn about our full range of solutions.

What You Need to Know Before Your Company Adopts BYOD

The bring your own device (BYOD) movement continues to gain momentum, and is redefining the workplace. Organizations of every size in almost every industry now allow – if not actively encourage – employees to bring their own personal device (laptop, tablet, smartphone or USB drive) to the job for work purposes.

Although BYOD offers companies considerable advantages – such as a more flexible/mobile workforce, increased productivity and less expense on outfitting employees with hardware – there are significant security risks that can leave companies vulnerable to data theft and other cybercrimes. Before your company goes BYOD, be sure you take the necessary risk mitigation measures.

Considering the number of companies joining the movement, these statistics compiled by Insight put the importance of security into perspective:

• 59% of organizations allow employees to use their own devices for work purposes; another 13% had planned to allow use within a year (Tech Pro Research).

• 87% of companies rely on their employees using personal devices to access business apps (Syntonic).

• As of 2016, six out of 10 companies had a BYOD-friendly policy in place (Syntonic).

Writing for intranet company Interact, Lisa Michaels notes that a successful policy needs to comprise a total “security culture” that consists of the following components: Policy, People and Technology. Without all three working together, BYOD policy risks failure through non-compliance.

Policy – establishing rules and regulations

Employees need a detailed, yet easy-to-understand policy regarding BYOD rules.

A basic set of rules should include the following:

• Passwords – State the importance of using strong passwords for apps, and install a password manager to make passwords easier to use and handle. Combining password management with remote wipe/lock protection will provide an even stronger security measure.

• Lost or stolen device – Steps employee needs to do to report it, and what company will do to protect its data. For example, once the loss of the device is reported, the company will immediately remotely wipe the device. Employees need to understand that even if the device is recovered, all data – including their personal data – is gone forever (for all practical purposes).

• Limit the use of apps – According to Sam Imandoust, Esq., legal analyst for the Identity Theft Resource Center, apps can provide an open door to malware installation and data breaches.

• Installation of up-to-date security software on all devices.

• Regular back-up of all locally-stored data on a regular basis – With the afore-mentioned procedure for remotely wiping lost or stolen devices.

• Restrict the use of jailbroken or rooted devices on your corporate network – Michaels notes that while these devices may have increased functionality, they’re also more exposed to security threats. This is due to the fact that they’ve been modified to bypass standard protections offered by the mobile operating system.

• Only connect to a secure Wi-Fi network – Unsecure networks leave devices vulnerable to hacking and other types of attacks. Because employees may need to use their device in a location with public Wi-Fi, Michaels recommends companies deploy a secure virtual private network (VPN) to keep data safe from interception.

• People – the importance of employee training and commitment

A comprehensive policy won’t protect your company’s data if employees ignore it. To ensure employee buy-in and commitment, go beyond the initial kick-off meeting/training session to create a culture of compliance. Conduct ongoing education sessions about recognizing and avoiding online scams, sketchy websites or downloading random apps. Training could include webinars, videos, quizzes or – yes – PowerPoint presentations. Bulletins alerting employees to a specific threat can also be emailed and/or announced on the company intranet.

Technology – staying ahead of the cybercriminals

As security technology is constantly being updated, your IT department not only needs to stay current, but, as Michaels recommends, provide ongoing support for employee devices to ensure proper configuration and consistency among devices. As with the employee training component, continual involvement is key to keeping devices – and company data – safe.

Fortunately, overcoming the challenges of BYOD does not need to overwhelm your organization. DocuServe has the industry experience and solutions to protect company data in the BYOD work environment, keeping employees productive without risking data loss. Our eServe encryption solution provides content security in the cloud, mobile access, security at rest and in motion, encrypted data security, remote wipe and much more.

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