“I forgot my password. Please help me. Please, help me with an urgent order. !”
It’s quite an innocent thing to do in chats with customer service agents.
This is how customer service security can be compromised.
Did you know that 43% of small businesses are at risk from cyberattacks?
Security risks can affect your customer service department. “Wait,” you may say. “Why would hackers target my customer service center specifically?”
You might think approaching 175 gigabytes (this number is followed by 21 zeros). of collective data by 2025 that several gigabytes may not seem important to cybercriminals and scammers.
They are able to make a lot of money online, especially if you have flaws in your protection.
You should have hands-on strategies to increase customer service security. Continue reading to learn why you should have them and how to put them into practice.
Why bother with customer service security?
Personal data security is an important factor in data governance success. Your service personnel and customers do not want to be victims of fraudulent or manipulative online activities. Secure customer trust is possible while maintaining strong safety. A strict and adequate privacy policy will give you an edge over your competitors.
These facts and stats are persuasive reasons to prioritize client privacy and to make you think about the possibilities of increasing your client service security.
- For example, 59% would not want to do business if the company was subject to a cyberattack within the last year.
- In 2021, the average cost for a data breach was 4.24 million.
- Cybersecurity Ventures projects that global cybercrime will cost $10.5 trillion per year by 2025.
- Symantec saw a 48% rise in cyberattacks using malicious email attachments via Office files.
- Trend Micro intercepted 6.9 million phishing emails containing COVID-19.
- In 2020, Ransomware attacks struck a new business approximately every 10 seconds.
Also read: Top 15 Cyber Security Tools
How cybercriminals could get to your support team and clients
Security incidents are more common because cybercriminals are very skilled at their job. They first look for vulnerable targets that are most at risk. These include passwords, emails, and personal laptops. After analyzing the vulnerabilities, they devise a clever plan to trick people into clicking on malicious links or sharing information.
Here’s how they do it:
They manipulate emotionally.
The goal of attackers is usually to gain passwords or other sensitive data or force their victims to download files using the most successful phishing email messages that appeal to such emotions as anger, anxiety, frustration, shame, misery, or greed.
These psychological manipulations have the following characteristics:
- Sensitivity to urgency
- Guardiolating
- A higher emotional state
- Information reliability
Cybercriminals also use another way to seem believable. They may pretend to be customers when they contact support agents or vice versa.
They disguise themselves as your workers or clients.
To create trust, attackers may use basic information about your customer or support agent, such as loyalty schemes, customer details, transaction times, and other data. This is a serious disguising flaw. Their statements seem convincing and genuine.
This is when it seems that the challenges of identifying the cybercriminal and apprehending him are the most difficult.
You can convince via email, chat, phone, chat, DM via Social Media, and many other communication methods. It is difficult, however, to properly assess electronic evidence in criminal investigations.
A business email compromise has been one of the most popular methods hackers use to trick people into their trust.
A combination of social engineering & phishing was able to help Chinese hackers posing as the CEO of the company steal $18.6 Million.
They can “break into” devices either physically or remotely.
Hackers can gain direct physical access to a device owned by support personnel or customers to obtain the information they need or upload programs to access the data later.
These programs are often used to track chats and passwords as well as credit card numbers.
Your agents can also connect to insecure networks, exposing their systems and data to risk.
Malicious software, such as keyloggers, can sometimes be used to steal pin codes, account numbers, and passwords. Cybercriminals can also steal data by using malicious mobile apps, which require admin permissions or access to contacts and microphones, accounts, and other information.
If you don’t improve your customer service security, it can be difficult for them. We will show you how to do this using eight practical methods and expert advice.
Also read: 6 Best Tips To Clone A Phone Remotely
8 Proven Methods to Enhance Customer Care Security
How do you begin? Planning is key.
Scammers and hackers have their own strategies and are skilled at playing this game. You need to create your own “game plan” to protect your customers, business support agents, and business.
1. Work out a cybersecurity strategy
Small businesses mistakenly believe that they don’t have to implement a strategy to protect customer service, even though they are most vulnerable to cyberattacks. Let’s take a look at the small-business cybersecurity trends. You’ll be amazed to see that cybercriminals don’t want large corporations to fall for them, but instead prefer to focus their efforts on smaller companies.
It would be a good idea to have a strategy and plan in place to reduce safety hazards within your support staff. When developing a cybersecurity plan for your online business don’t forget about client care.
To create an effective strategy, you should consider new threats and fraud schemes, such as COVID-19 security scams.
2. Organize training in IT security
IT security is not without its human element. Your employees make your company vulnerable from the inside. You’re wrong if you believe that your employees are able to respond to safety incidents by receiving security training each year from your support staff. You should start by implementing a security awareness program within your company. For your cybercrime prevention strategy, it is essential to have regular and frequent training.
Joe Thong uses these tips to make customer service more secure and his support team more tech-savvy in data protection. He also uses them in his customer service center for security training.
- Use project management software or create a digital information board to share cybersecurity news, trends, and other topics.
- Provide courses in IT security (SANS Institute Udemy, edX Cybersecurity Courses, etc.).
- To train your employees, hire qualified cybersecurity professionals
- Your teams should be taught an incident response plan.
- You can try “live fire” simulations. In these scenarios, some agents of your customer service team will play the role of “attackers”, while others are “victims.”
- Invite ex-hackers to share their secrets with your customer service staff.
- This training should be done regularly (monthly is a good idea).
You can also improve your company’s data security program overall. This is done by regularly training your employees and teaching them how “swim well” in data security.
Also read: A Guide to Security Equipment for Small Business
3. Take advantage of automated solutions for protection
Artificial Intelligence is already changing customer service and helping businesses with automation. Business leaders and entrepreneurs forget that automated systems can be used to protect their services from risk-adaptive threats.
Data privacy management tools are also a great way to avoid security problems. You can automate, for example, the safe sharing of sensitive customer data. Redaction software is one way to accomplish this. This software searches for and removes confidential information.
4. Enable multi-factor authentication
Two-factor authentication systems can be vulnerable to attacks that get more sophisticated. Particularly, digital banking is affected by the authentication issue. It is crucial for businesses to secure their customers’ payment information. Multi-factor authentication (MFA), which can be enabled to increase customer service security, may be an option.
Are you a believer in predictions? Are you a believer in cybersecurity prediction?
They may be true, as password days are numbered. Amazon Web Services supports, for example, a U2F encryption key as an MFA device.
Moreover, passwordless authentication has become a revolutionary trend in FinTech.
5. Create a separate, controlled environment to protect your security system
A separate managed system allows you to test and analyze your client service safety protocols as well as an overall security level. You must address the audit confusion and cybersecurity assessment.
Another reason to have such a controlled environment in place is the ability of customer representatives to be reviewed and verified for their safety and security.
If we are talking about industrial IoT security, segmenting IT networks will help you protect connected devices from customer information leakage.
Perhaps you recall the breach of Target’s computer network through an Internet-connected heating system.
6. Select a cloud service provider
Cloud-hosted software solutions are becoming more popular in organizations. They take advantage of the SaaS security best practices.
It is important to make a wise decision about who you can trust with your customers’ data. This could lead to a loss of revenue for your company. With managed VPS cloud hosting from a trusted partner, you can save two birds. You can outsource all aspects of data security management to a trusted agency. Another benefit is that you will see an increase in security when you move to the cloud.
Cloud solutions have been reported to improve security for 94% of businesses. Cloud computing has already proven to be a boon for online giants such as Netflix, Etsy, and PayPal.
The following criteria will help you choose a secure and efficient cloud service provider:
- Tech stack and service roadmap
- Certifications and standards
- Scalability and reliability
- Partners of the Company
- The healthiness of its online profile
You may not be able to predict the next attack from hackers lurking around the Internet. Hacking is a constant process that cannot be stopped.
Every day hackers create new tools and techniques that could jeopardize, or even kill your strategy to improve customer service safety. You must be ready to deal with this unknown.
Also read: 5 Best Private Cloud Storage Service Providers
7. Take proper precautions and play the game of anticipation
Businesses that care about customer data and their reputation will benefit from continuous, ongoing monitoring for possible leaks.
You may also use the principle of least privilege. Support agents should not have administrative access to customer details.
Encouraging a culture of safety at work is another preventive measure. Finally, consider a cybersecurity emergency recovery plan. Then invest in prevention.
8. Create a security risk management department
This will allow you to understand the cybersecurity position and help you decide when you should implement a risk management plan.
Security risk management teams assess risks based upon the likelihood of potential threats and identify and implement risk mitigation measures (IT security programs, dynamic backup, software updates, multifactor access authentication, software updates, IT security training programs, etc.). ), and monitors internal data usage.
To avoid cyber threats and their repercussions, security risk managers can also create next-generation network security strategies.
Last Line
Your company doesn’t automatically have security. This article has shown you the reasons why cybersecurity is important for your company and how you can improve customer service security.
You can also use our suggestions to see safety improvements in action. The biggest cybersecurity mistake businesses make is failing to secure their data.
You need to understand that even though absolute security is not possible, there are always ways to improve. These tips may be helpful, especially if hackers are already planning to take down your company. You never know when they will strike.
