Security is a top-of-mind concern these days and for good reason. The costs of a data breach can be significant — and in some cases enormous. For example, the Target breach in 2013 ultimately ended up costing the company a cool $162 million. And who can forget the Epsilon breach back in 2011? The price tag for that incident? Four (cue Dr. Evil voice) BILLION dollars.
Of course, most data breaches aren’t as staggeringly expensive as these notorious cases. However, all breaches are costly and can take several weeks, months, or even years to investigate and clean up. And we haven’t even mentioned reputation damage and potential lawsuits, which only add to the financial burden.
Regardless of whether your business stands to lose $1,000, $10,000 or $100,000 or more, the bottom line is that you want to take steps that prevent the chances that you’ll be victimized by a data breach. And that’s why — and contrary to what you may have been told — it’s smarter and safer to switch from an on-premise landline phone system to a state-of-the-art cloud phone system.
Here are the five key reasons why a cloud phone system can be MORE SECURE than a landline phone system:
- Storing data in the cloud vs. on-premises can reduce the likelihood of insider threats carried out by rogue workers, contractors, and vendors — and in other cases, incompetent or negligent employees. According to a recent study carried out by the Ponemon Institute and co-sponsored by IBM and ObserveIT, the frequency and cost of insider threats have risen sharply from $8.76 million in 2018 to $11.45 million in 2020.
- Automatically storing data in the cloud means that employees aren’t keeping sensitive telecommunications data on their devices, which can disappear in a hurry. Research has found that a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds, and more than 70 million smartphones are lost each year — with only 7% being recovered.
- In many businesses, securing the phone system means putting a lock on the closet/room where the system is installed (and in many small businesses, there isn’t even a lock!). Considering how much sensitive data is stored on the system at any given time, this is a massive vulnerability. Cloud phone system providers mitigate this risk in two ways. First, they deploy several layers of cybersecurity such as next-generation firewalls, encryption, and more. Second, they deploy several layers of physical security at their data centers such as concrete barriers, security cameras, fences with barbed wire, and guards.
- Cloud phone system providers conduct ongoing penetration and vulnerability testing, which is a level of continuous auditing and scrutiny that many companies — especially small businesses — cannot provide because they do not have the resources, the time, the budget and/or the expertise.
- Cloud phone system providers store data in multiple locations, which protects data from hardware failure, corruption, theft, or disasters like flood and fire. Research shows that recovery times are 4 times faster for businesses that use cloud services compared to businesses that don’t.
The bottom line? Shifting your phone system from the landline ground to the cloud isn’t just about saving thousands of dollars each year, empowering your remote workers, and improving customer experience. It’s also about being SAFER. Indeed, in a Microsoft survey, 94% of businesses said that their security improved after adopting cloud-based applications!
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Call us at (336) 455-4000 or chat with us during business hours by clicking the chat icon on the lower-right of your screen. We are a local Greensboro, North Carolina-based business with over 100 5-star reviews!