What are the areas of concern for Accounting Software Security?

In the modern digital world, data security of stored information online is a topic of significant discussion. We often hear of many instances of a data breach or software hacking, so it becomes a critical concern for the security of your accounting software. While considering an accounting software suitable for your business, you require to check whether it has appropriate and adequate security standards to safeguard your financial data.

Cloud-based accounting applications are the trending technology in accounting. Cloud-based applications also have some risk involved while implementing in your business. The concerns include the absence of physical control on the servers, data transmission on the cloud, and the possibilities of affecting the loopholes in your company.

While choosing the accounting software for your business, you need to consider all the security concerns for your confidential business data.

Area of Concern for Accounting Software Security

In todays’ technological world, all businesses remain exposed to different cybersecurity threats. It is critically required for accounting firms to prevent revenue loss and maintain business continuity by avoiding a data breach. The concerning areas of accounting software are as follows:

1. Obsolete software –

There are often some cases where large-scale companies failed to prevent the data breach even after using advanced security measures. The accounting companies have financial and confidential data, and that’s why they are more vulnerable to malware or ransomware cyberattacks.

This type of cyberattack happens when the operating system or the applications are obsolete or not updated.

Therefore, accounting organizations need to have up-to-date software. They must choose the correct and suitable software applications to store the confidential data. Accounting companies should communicate and share the information on a secured network and install anti-malware and antivirus protection.

2. Data breach due to employees –

Nowadays, various companies are migrating to cloud accounting solutions for allowing their employees to access work from different devices and distant locations. They also offer to bring your device policy to work. Hence, these devices might not have adequate security measures and updates required for maintaining data security.

You must ensure that by implementing your device policy, the employees should have constraints while accessing or sharing any data while using some applications. Also, the employees should remove the customer’s data from their devices frequently and install powerful anti-virus protection for data security.

3. Missed assessment of risk –

Small and mid-scale businesses are more vulnerable to cyberattacks as they do not apply sturdy security policies. Hence, cybercriminals or hackers target these small and mid-scale businesses due to insufficient data security implementation.

For every accounting firm, it is necessary to assess the security risk in their company frequently. The security risk analysis helps the organization evaluate the client data and examine the effect of employee’s devices to avoid any security attack.

It also assists in the management and enhancement of security policies to prevent examined possible loopholes.

4. Data in transit –

In the security policy of any organization, it is essential to focus on the protection of data at rest and in transit. Accounting companies communicate on both ends, external or internal. A lot of organizations still send emails to communicate with clients. They even share the bank statements, tax files, and other sensitive data in the email attachments.

Cybercriminals often use malware attacks and ransomware to get financial data from the data in transit. Companies should use the data encryption method while sharing critical and confidential data safely.

All the top cloud service providers mostly give end-to-end encryption for your data security which is accessible to only authorized users if the data gets breached in the transmission.  

5. Remote accessibility of data –

Cloud computing technology offers employees access to their accounting software and customer data from remote accessibility on the internet. They even allow the firms to work in a distributed environment.

The remote accessibility of business and client data makes it more vulnerable for hackers to breach and steal customers’ confidential and financial data.

Therefore, the accounting firms offer employees and customers to access a secured virtual private network. It helps the business to prevent security risks. It is advisable to utilize authorized and reliable software solutions such as Microsoft Remote Desktop. Also, the firm should offer multi-factor authentication to avoid any unauthorized access in the cloud.

6. Cryptojacking –

Cryptojacking is a method where hackers target cryptocurrencies via unauthorized use of computing devices. The hacker’s attacks on cryptocurrency with phishing. They even spread crypto-mining malware via famous websites along with browser extensions.

Various businesses use cryptocurrency for sale and procurement, so accounting companies should apply a compelling strategy to detect and prevent cryptojacking.

The accountants are required to avoid the mining of cryptocurrency via any unauthorized employee accounts. The accounting firm should have a recovery plan to overcome cryptojacking.

7. Accessible password –

The most vulnerable aspect while setting your account is the accessible or weak password. The accountants must have discrete passwords for emails, systems, or applications. Sometimes, accountants keep one password for all the accounts, and this gives the possibility of accessing all the records if the password got hacked.

A strong password comprises a set of alphabets, unique characters, and numbers. They should avoid using their general information like date of birth, name etc., as their passwords.

8. Multi-tenancy server –

Cloud service providers provide sharing of hardware while hosting. It states that they share space with various clients, and it can cause hacking concerns. If the other company data got hacked, then your business data may be compromised too. For ensuring and avoiding data breach, you can contact your cloud service provider to store confidential or sensitive data in the private cloud. You can also implement the API for your business data security.

All in all, we can say that accounting firms are at more potential risk of losing their sensitive data. For every accounting firm, it is essential to detect and prevent possible security attacks to sustain in the market and maintain its business continuity with goodwill.

The accounting firm should implement all the necessary security standards like anti-virus, anti-malware, end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, intrusion detection and prevention solutions to avoid any data breach.