Striking The Right Balance

In 2017, an employee in the HR Department of a leading global company received an excel sheet attachment in his official mail. While the content seemed harmless, it was in fact a well disguised Ransomware attack which had in fact placed several companies worldwide in the dock. Ransomware attacks targeting HR departments across the globe have since been in vogue since they possess valuable employee data which can be used to commit crimes such as tax frauds and the like.

- S. Ajay Kumar

Human Capital interacted with Kristin Machacek Leary, Chief Human Resources Officer, Forcepoint who highlighted various hazards pertaining to employee and organisational data, and the solutions to mitigate such threats and safeguard the interests of the employees and the organisations.

HC: On the one hand, organisations are transitioning towards remote working, BYOD, Cloud and Hosted services, third party services, and on the other, you have the all important aspect of data security. So, how do you feel HR can strike the right balance between the two when it comes to data or cyber security?

KL: Organisations, first and foremost, have to establish standards of their own, be it flexibility in working from home or the devices they use. Organisations are always going to be flexing and adapting, based on cultural differences, industry size and what is required for the role. I think it is just a natural evolution that organisations have to have that employee setup. However, regarding the tools and solutions for data security, at least from my lens, I do not worry about it because when companies buy solutions from companies such as Forcepoint, they do get those extra levels of protection, whether it is from our network security elements, the next generation Firewall, to what we are doing on the data to protection side. When companies come together with a suite of solutions, not only are the company assets with the data in IP protected, but the employees are also protected. Therefore, HRs do not think they are the lens of protecting their people. As a Chief Human Resources Officer, I believe, HR should work hand in hand with IT to ensure that employees are protected, and at the same time, the company and the assets are well protected.