How to Prepare Your Employees for a Digital Disaster

Knowing that sooner or later your organization may be breached, a smart strategy is to offer your employees identity and privacy protection NOW. After all, HR is a goldmine of data for thieves to exploit—tax documents, employment eligibility forms, bank account numbers, and healthcare information. That puts your employees at risk for multiple types of identity and privacy threats.

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Why you should offer identity and privacy protection before a breach hits

Just as you’d prepare for a natural disaster with emergency food and medical supplies, consider preparing your employees for a digital disaster with identity and privacy protection. You may not be able to stop the storm—or data breach—but proactively arming your employees with identity and privacy protection can:

• Lessen the likelihood of becoming a victim of Identity theft or fraud. Your employees are promptly notified of suspicious activity so they act quickly before a problem escalates, such as setting credit freezes or fraud alerts.
• Offer complete recovery if they do become an identity theft victim. Using limited power of attorney (LPOA), recovery experts act on your employees’ behalf to restore their identities to pre-theft status.

Lowering the collective blood pressure

When a breach occurs, emotions and stress run high. Offering identity and privacy protection as a benefit can help ease the tension. Here’s why: You’ve already done the hard work of finding an identity and privacy protection provider you can trust. Your company now has a go-to source for identity protection for customers whose information has been exposed in a data breach.

You can recommend your provider to the appropriate stakeholders in your company and encourage them to sign a master service agreement before a breach even happens. This can be especially helpful if the provider offers complete breach response services, such as notification, call center communications, and enrollment website. You’ll have immediate access to scalable, customizable, and quick-to-execute services.

And identity and privacy protection is a high-value, relatively low-cost investment. As Tom Kelly, ID Experts’ president and CEO, pointed out in a BenefitsPRO article, “Americans spend an average of $1,100 each year on coffee. A top-tier identity theft protection plan costs less than a quarter of that.”

Can HR reduce breach risks?

Employees are a top cause of breaches. Thanks to BYOD, workers use personal mobile devices to access company systems and data. They visit social media and other personal sites while on the job using computers that are connected to company servers. Social engineering attacks can trick an employee into sharing valuable company data, clicking on a malicious link, or opening a malicious file. In addition, sharing too much information on social media makes it easier for attackers to guess passwords or steal a company’s confidential information through employee posts. Identity and privacy protection that safeguards employee information can also address cyber risk throughout the entire organization.

Despite best efforts, your company will likely face a data breach that impacts employee information. Offering identity and privacy protection ahead of time provides peace of mind and gives your employees the power to act immediately if their data is compromised.

Download the HR to the Rescue white paper to learn more about defending your employees’ privacy and identity.