How Local Authorities Can Keep Data Secure

Last Updated on June 16, 2020 by Christian Ralph

For those working in local government, there is frequent need for access to a wealth of public data. Whether it’s confidential information regarding voters, private landlords, an election, a complaint, social welfare or education, it’s the council’s responsibility to safeguard the large amounts of information that it holds.

A staggering new report from campaign group, Big Brother Watch, found that councils across the UK suffered over 98 million cyber-attacks since 2013 – that’s at least 37 security breaches every minute.

For some top tips on how to prevent a security breach in local government, read on:

Security

To maximise security for important documents, individual pass codes can be set with some Samsung printers. For example, the Samsung CLX-6260FW above, features Confidential Print. An integrated numeric keypad means only designated people can access the printer – a quick and easy way to ensure documents are not just left sitting on the device for anyone to remove.

All in one printers by Samsung also offer an extra barrier called Secure Login Manager to prevent the wrong people from getting access. This feature allows you to set up an ID and passwords, as well as PINs to access the machine, creating an additional level of safeguarding for classified documents such as election details or results.

Cloud-based technology with security policies

Local authorities should extend use of secure cloud-based services and technology to help ensure that they can improve standards of data protection.

Start by researching reputable cloud providers as these will maintain resilience and provide secure services, which can be accessed from any device. Don’t assume, however, that all your security needs will be handled as you may need a third-party tool for that extra level of protection.

Cloud-based working which is secure, also solves the problem of people having things stored in different formats and drives, as everything is stored and easily accessible from one central point. This also takes the stress out of having to find confidential complaints in a hurry or being able to store them safely. Council workers can also access these documents outside of the office.

Data backup capabilities, which are also supported by cloud services provide security and resilience to underpin data protection and prevent breaches. For example, a good cloud filing company for local authorities to use would be Dropbox, which uses a process called sharding, splitting data into chunks so, if there is data protection breach, hackers will only have access to small amounts, as opposed to whole files.

Storing data policies can be consistently enforced across the entire network and easily monitored for policy or procedure breaches. Emails can also be monitored for compliance, enabling policy to be refined over time. If information was leaked it would be possible to ensure that confidential data doesn’t leave the network, whether deliberately or by mistake.

Software security

Security controls can be used to protect a local authority, by, for example, detecting the accidental sending of electronic data to the wrong people. Once an incident has been detected, a council should ensure it acts properly to contain the problem, recover from it and reduce the risk of harm to itself and any third parties.

With HP printers, software is built-in to the Enterprise devices to detect attacks automatically. These printers can even ‘self-heal’ from a virus. The HP Enterprise M506dn includes data protection functions. As well as the hardware, HP offers various bespoke software programs to make printers more secure and intuitive.

Employee training

A cyber attack can cause mayhem in a large organisation, breaching not only computer systems, but exploiting staff, who are often the weakest security link. Whilst authorities may rely on their IT staff to identify potential threats, responsibility must lie with all council employees.

With ever-increasing amounts of data on record, all local authority staff should have basic cyber security awareness. To counter a cyber attack, authorities should consider training everyone involved with the council, meaning they’d be less likely to fall foul of intrusions which may allow fraud or trigger a phishing scam.

For more information on HP and Samsung printers and how they can help a local authority in the event of a data protection breach, contact our experts today for assistance.