At SourceOne, we’re constantly on the lookout for ways to make our customer experience better. This includes finding ways to keep your data safe, and your HR processes and payroll systems up-and-running. Within the last few years, that role has been increasingly focused on data integrity and protecting our customers’ most confidential information online.
Cyber-attacks are becoming ever more prevalent, impacting over half of all businesses. While healthcare companies have been the largest single target of attacks, the payroll and financial services industry is a favorite focus of cyber criminals and malware, given the sensitivity of client data. The barrage of attacks on businesses like ours is at an all-time high. Take Equifax, for instance. In 2017, the massive credit rating agency incurred the largest data breach in history, effecting roughly 150 million people. An incident like that has the potential to impact nearly every household in America. Even as SourceOne ramps-up our vigilance and safeguards to prevent such an incident effecting our customers, criminals are getting greedier and more brazen.
When cyber-attacks strike close to home…
One of the payroll companies recently effected by this surge in attacks was Apex HCM, an industry-leading human capital management (HCM) software provider that we recommend to many of our own clients. Apex suffered a unique type of cyber-attack called ransomware, wherein a malicious software blocks access to a computer system until a given sum of money is paid. As you can imagine, ransomware attacks are very disruptive to business-as-usual. Immediately, Apex took all client systems offline and isolated their customer databases, helping to safeguard client information.
To everyone’s great relief, Apex’s rigorous security protocols proactively combatted the incident and prevented client information from being accessed; internal analyses indicate that no customer data was compromised. They even hired and continue to work with a credentialed cybersecurity forensics firm to investigate and verify any potential impact. While we certainly understand the inconvenience of being temporarily unable to log into business-critical systems, the integrity and security of data is paramount. As a services partner of Apex, SourceOne aggressively monitored and supported our clients during this cyber-attack, ensuring that data was isolated, uncompromised, and fully restored as quickly as possible. We also worked with Apex to provide workarounds and deadline extensions during the incident.
Moving forward, together
Our priority has always been and continues to be the protection of customer data. This means that as cybersecurity threats and malicious attacks grow more frequent and aggressive, we’ll continue to improve the way we prevent and combat these incidents. We also hold our technology partners to the same level of preparedness, so that our clients receive the best support in the timeliest manner if another attack should ever occur. No matter the threat, SourceOne will continue to invest in the most up-to-date security protocols and preventative measures. Together, we’ll be able to continue providing comprehensive human capital management services for the modern small business.
If you have questions about the security of your data on our preferred technology platforms, call us at (888) 622-4746 to speak with the SourceOne team. We’re always here for you.
