Since the beginning of computer technology, cyberattacks have posed a risk to organizations, and cybersecurity in recruitment industry is a new concern. However, as hackers have evolved, their capacity to access and potentially exploit employee data has created an unparalleled risk in today’s workplaces.
Cybercriminals lurk around every corner, waiting for someone to make a mistake they may exploit to steal information. Because your HR staff interacts with individuals outside your organization, you must ensure that each interview is conducted carefully, that comprehensive background checks are performed on each applicant, and that each employee has limited access.
Furthermore, once approved individuals have joined the company’s environment, they must be thoroughly trained to perform safely and productively to improve cyber security. People should be incredibly resistant to attempts to intercept communications during this burgeoning era of remote work.
Table of contents
Significance of Cybersecurity in the Recruitment Industry
Why is Cybersecurity Awareness Crucial?
How to Improvise Cybersecurity Practices in Recruitment?
Should Recruiters be Aware of Cybersecurity Practices in Recruitment?
FAQs
Latest updates
Until recently, cybersecurity was not a key focus for HR professionals. But times have changed, and that is no longer the case. This is especially crucial given the problems posed by the pandemic in early 2020. Collaboration is now essential between cybersecurity teams and other departments such as HR.
When the epidemic hit, many firms transferred their activities online. Some companies implemented a work-from-home policy for their staff, which faced significant cybersecurity breaches in the recruitment industry. This resulted in nearly all types of cyberattacks on various companies.
Recruiters must understand the demand for cyber security in recruitment. This involves understanding how workers might provide security risks to an organization and viable remedies. In this essay, we will go over every element HR professionals should be aware of regarding cybersecurity.
Significance of Cybersecurity in the Recruitment Industry
Cyber security awareness entails enabling everyone associated with your company to do their part in defending your company from potential security risks. Credentialing, resources, solutions, training, and tools are used to give knowledge and actions to protect your organization.
A company may assure its employees by fostering a cyber security-conscious working culture. Contractors and suppliers are aware of cyber dangers, how to identify them, and the possible impact on their businesses. Furthermore, a cyber security-aware staff can take proactive measures to mitigate such hazards. Because prevention is better than cure, implementing a cyber awareness program for small and medium-sized enterprises provides a cost-effective way to deploy a powerful defence against cyber attacks.
Historically, most firms have dealt with this imminent threat by enlisting the assistance of their IT teams to advise on software and personnel processes. This is a critical step in developing a cybersecurity workforce, but it overlooks one area that may help with communication and execution: human resources.
Despite its technological nature, cybersecurity is a human issue: building trust with employees and investing in continual education to develop best practices. That’s where the need for cyber security demands recruitment.HR executives recognise that when a new policy is implemented in a business, it is up to individual workers to be inspired and empowered to enforce it throughout the workday. Regardless of the technological complexity of a particular solution, without this critical human component, an investment in protective software and processes may be ineffective.
Why is Cybersecurity Awareness Crucial?
Any cybersecurity expert will tell you that the human component is one of the most challenging obstacles. Early identification of a data breach or cyberattack may save a company’s reputation, money, and credibility. Recognizing early warning signals and addressing them before serious harm is frequently the best way to avoid a data breach.
Employee cyber security training is a significant first step for cyber security in hiring, but it should not be done only once. Recent incidents have compelled many firms to activate business continuity strategies and transition to remote working. Anecdotal data shows, however, that the percentage of cyber-attacks has grown.
To prevent possible data breaches, firms, tiny and medium-sized businesses, must raise cyber security knowledge among both onsite and remote personnel.
Cyber thieves threaten any firm, particularly a recruiting agency that relies on technology, systems, and data. If an assault is effective, it has the potential to damage your firm. The following are the most prevalent types of assaults that might occur:
Malware
Malware is any program built with the malicious aim of causing harm to a computer, server, client, or computer network. As part of their cyber-attack protection, all businesses should use anti-malware software and firewalls, maintain all software and systems up to date and be alert of any dangerous communications.
DDoS Exploits
A distributed denial of service (DDoS) assault is a way of bringing down websites, email servers, and other internet-connected services. This attack may render your data unavailable. If a recruiting agency’s service is disabled, it will be impossible to operate since users cannot apply for positions, and recruiters will lose access to fundamental operations.
Phishing
Phishing is a fraudulent attempt to get personal information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card information by impersonating a trustworthy person in an electronic communication such as an email. Because a recruiting firm must connect via email daily, they are obvious candidates for an email phishing scam.
Ransomware
Ransomware is malicious software that prevents a user from accessing their computer or data until a ransom is paid. Ransomware spreads quickly through phishing emails and hacked websites. Ransomware may be damaging to an individual or business.
Ransomware is likely to be used as an assault technique against a valued UP, like a recruiting agency. They understand that the attack will cause such significant disruption to the firm that an agency will most likely pay up. Given the nature of the sensitive data that are recruiting agencies have about their customers, they will be willing to pay to get that information restored.
Errors Made by Humans
Human mistake is the root cause of 90% of cyber-attacks. A breach can occur when a consultant accidentally clicks on something they are not meant to. One example is opening a malicious link in a phishing email; with only one click, hackers may get access to all of your internal systems.
Employee Malicious Behaviour
It’s also feasible that an employee who wants to start their firm or go to a rival may take the data to further their career. This is more often than you believe, according to Pensar, who discovered that 59% of employees who leave or are dismissed steal corporate data. Recruitment firms must take the necessary precautions to guarantee that workers who are about to depart do not have access to sensitive information.
Inadequate Training
Human mistake concerns recruiting firms due to a lack of cyber security training. Many people are unaware of the perils of dangerous software and might miss a phishing email in their inbox. While newer employees are likely to be digital natives who understand cyber dangers, older employees will require more training. There is still no assurance that digital natives know everything. Thus training for all employees should be provided.
How to Improvise Cybersecurity Practices in Recruitment?
1. Make regular backups of essential data.
If your system is compromised, regular backups of essential recruiting information to the cloud, external hard drives, or network-attached storage can guarantee the data is available and does not disrupt your company’s or agency’s business. This is especially crucial for the recruitment team, as they get thousands of different job applications and run hundreds of report pages to locate the best applicants among the many.
2. Employ Data Encryption
Encryption is one of the most recent cybersecurity advances that your recruiting firm should never overlook. This technique is relatively simple since it protects crucial data by applying unique codes that “scramble” the data and render it unreadable. As a result, even if the attackers get past the firewall, the code located there will be useless to them.
3. Avoid Using Outdated Software
The significance of continuously upgrading the software library cannot be overstated. With each new version released, developers attempt to address issues and add new features and invest in the application’s security. As a result, with each app version update, cybercriminals find it more difficult to infiltrate the system or use its flaws to target the workstations of your recruitment teams.
4. Employ Firewalls
A firewall is a so-called barrier between your internal and the Internet network that detects and stops illegal access attempts. Consequently, you may improve the first layer of protection to ensure that hackers cannot remove, use, or leak the machines and sensitive data stored inside.
5. Select a Reliable Cloud Service Provider for Data Storage
Overall, the cloud service is one of the most effective strategies to accelerate the growth of your recruiting firm. First and foremost, it improves workflow flexibility by allowing recruiters to send or exchange data quickly and safely. Cloud storage is an excellent approach to keep all employees up to speed on the latest developments and enable access to up-to-date documents and reports.
6. Set Different Access Levels for Employees With Different Responsibilities
Another essential component that your recruitment firm may employ to maintain system security is the access level. It not only allows you to comply with local legislation but also allows you to control the specific categories of data your recruiters may access and work with. This method may appear overly simple as a cybersecurity precaution, but it nevertheless makes sense for most recruitment and other firms dealing with massive data today.
7. Perform regular security audits
With hacking assaults getting increasingly complex and devious, it is vital to deploy the most dependable security procedures to reduce system susceptibility.
For recruiting agencies, such audits can give further information on IT security protection, uncover potential system vulnerabilities that must be addressed, and, most importantly, provide facts about their compliance assessment.
8. Gather and Examine Logs
Log analysis is an even more valuable source of up-to-date system information. Essentially, this is a method of understanding computer records (logs) and their extensive monitoring and analysis to enhance the organization’s system security.
9. Hire a Professional to Create a Strong Cybersecurity Strategy
Never underestimate the importance of having a relevant, planned algorithm for future data breaches and a step-by-step recovery strategy. In the case of a data or system breach, your team should be prepared to pause the process, restore access, and increase overall system security.
10. Inform Employees About Best Security Practices
Another component of the cybersecurity plan is to incorporate additional personnel and train them on how to respond quickly and adequately to any system breach. For example, your recruiters should be aware of the basic security actions to take if they notice any concerns with their computer or database.
Should Recruiters be Aware of Cybersecurity Practices in Recruitment?
HR is ideally positioned to humanise and promote security inside a business, and IT is passing up an opportunity to leverage HR skills and insights to improve risk mitigation. HR views security through the eyes of the organization’s employees. HR departments may foster secure cyberculture by ensuring that workers understand what is required to keep the firm safe from security threats. HR professionals collect sensitive personal information from all workers when employed and during their employment; thus, the HR department’s digital platforms and tools must be safe. Furthermore, HR may advise on how new technology should be integrated into the workforce to promote engagement and acceptance.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are numerous methods for recruiting firms to protect their data storage from cybercriminals, such as using firewalls and performing regular backups, establishing different access levels, and developing a robust cybersecurity strategy for a quick yet practical response to any type of data breach to attain cyber security in the recruitment industry.
The more security measures you implement for your organisation, the less likely your recruitment firm will be harmed by a cyber-attack. With all of those tips in place at your recruitment firm or agency, you can be confident that none of your data will be accessed or disclosed to hackers.
FAQs
- How can recruiters reduce cyber security breaches with the aid of IT professionals?
HR views security through the eyes of the organization’s employees. HR departments may foster secure cyberculture by ensuring that workers understand what is required to keep the firm safe from security threats. While IT is usually engaged in designing policies and procedures, HR may convey the significance of new rules and carry out IT’s plans to safeguard the organisation through training and modules to guarantee adequate adoption.
- What steps should a recruiter take during an interview to avoid a cyber security breach?
During their initial interviews, applicants should not be pressured to give too much information. Furthermore, contact with potential workers must take place in a secure atmosphere.
For example, only the best equipment should be used while having remote meetings with applicants. Of course, before the actual interview, the majority of discussion may occur via phone conversations or email exchanges. The latter raises some concerns. As a recruiter, you must be prepared for every situation.
A candidate may utilise an email platform that does not support encryption. To prevent information from leaking, you must install tools or plugins that encrypt all emails.
- Does teaching the HR team about security threats have any effect?
Employee cybersecurity education will make the most significant difference of all. If your HR team and other employees think they are always under attack, they will be more cautious while conducting business. Because HR controls user access, the best thing to do is limit employee access to the required areas. You can provide additional rights only when necessary.
