Seasonal Workers and Data Security: Is Your Data at Risk in St. Petersburg?

Finding seasonal help can be a great thing. It’s like someone sent reinforcements in your greatest time of need, which is really good. It helps your business compete in busy times but stay lean enough to gut it out when times are lean. 

But additional risk comes along with the relief you get from knowing you’ve got everything fully staffed. Let’s dive into the top three things you need to consider as your seasonal workers come and go:

Don’t Give Away Any More than You Have to

This approach is called “the principle of least privilege,” and it basically means that, as you add new users to your organization, you should only give them access to what they absolutely need to have access to. The DoD wouldn’t simply open the floodgates on top-secret clearance data, and neither should you. 

It’s better to have to deal with employees coming to you with questions than to give away the whole shop. They probably won’t be with the organization for more than a few months, so if they don’t have a need to know, do not grant them access.

Training Matters

All of your employees, whether they’re permanent or not, ought to be given thorough security awareness training. From simple situational awareness training to data governance protocol education, it’s crucial that everyone with access to your company’s vital data is trained on what to do and what not to do. 

As long as everyone knows the proper procedure and follows it, your data should be safe.

Take Immediate Action

Whenever you add a new seasonal employee, you immediately provision them and all their accounts with whatever they need to be able to get their job done. For the best possible security, you need to do the exact same thing in reverse whenever their tenure ends. 

Immediately de-provision their accounts as soon as they are no longer needed. This approach means denying them access, and it’s no big deal to them; they don’t need it anyway. But it also means reducing the number of points of entry the company has, thus reducing its potential exposure to hackers.

Don’t Let Seasonal Changes Take Down Your Business

ShredQuick has a large array of cybersecurity options for your business. Our Data Protection Portal is a one-stop shop for GDPR compliance templates, breach support, and more. Call us today to get a custom solution to your company’s needs for its seasonal employees.