Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more businesses conduct their deals online. While this can open up businesses to work with a whole range of new businesses, from suppliers in other countries, to marketing agencies across the country, it does cause some problems as well. These problems are namely in the form of cybersecurity, which has become even more of an issue since the COVID-19 pandemic began. To prevent this, businesses that are signing deals with other businesses online need to make sure that their critical assets are safe, including sensitive files such as contracts and financial disclosure forms. If the terms of these deals were leaked, it might cause a lot of damage to both businesses involved, so it behooves both businesses that are involved in the deal to make sure that it is both safe and secure.
With that in mind, here is what businesses can do to make their business deals safe so that they do not risk a cybersecurity attack.
Leave out as many people as possible
One thing many business fail to do is leave out people who do not need to be involved. Not every administrative assistant from every department needs to be aware of a business deal, and the more people that are made aware of the particular of a deal, the more risk you are creating. This risk does not mean malicious intent; often lower level employees fall for things like phishing scams without even realizing it.
As such, it is important to limit the knowledge of the business deal to those who are needed to complete and execute the particular of a deal, particularly those in management or leadership positions. To prevent a cyberattack from happening here, it is recommended that you keep any documents related to the deal in a separate place from the rest of your company’s documents.
Store documents in a safe place
Another thing that many companies fail to do when making business deals is actually store the documents, such as contracts and financial disclosure forms, in a safe place. While Google Drive or Dropbox might feel sufficient for this need, these cloud storage applications are actually incredible insecure and are vulnerable to hacks and cyberattacks. To prevent this, you should consider implementing a deal room into your deal-making process. A deal room is a secure solution that helps companies better negotiate deals, and allows you to store documents, interact with them, and negotiate directly within the deal room. Most of all, a deal room allows for user-based permission settings, allowing you to keep out employees from both companies involved in the deal who do not need to be involved.
In summary
Signing deals is an extremely important part of running any business. There are numerous types of strategic partnerships that almost any business needs to both survive and thrive, and having these partnerships is crucial to continued growth and success. However, these partnerships can also have the opposite effect if the deal itself is not done in a safe and secure way. Due to the increasingly prevalence of cybersecurity issues, it is more important than ever for companies to make sure that deals are done as discreetly as possible and that they are done through a secure platform such as a deal room. This prevents business document from falling into the wrong hands and ruining the reputation of both companies that are involved in the deal.
