Effective communication among board members is essential for ensuring that directors make informed decisions and are actively involved. However, boards face the dilemma of balancing their need to communicate effectively, while protecting sensitive information and preventing cyberattacks.
Boards should use secure collaboration tools such as board portals as well as real-time messaging platforms to ensure that discussions, documents and other sensitive data secure. This is a growing concern as more companies are subject to hacks and breaches and regulators set new security standards.
Security experts agree that it’s not an issue of “if” it’s “when” an organization will suffer a data security breach. A successful cybersecurity plan includes a good board relationship with the chief information security officer (CISO). CISOs should seize every opportunity to communicate their vision and strategy with the board. This will assist them to get the board’s support for a more effective response to cyberattacks.
Many board members and governance professionals rely on personal email for internal communications about governance, particularly during virtual meetings. This practice puts organizations at greater danger of boardroomsolutions.org/best-secure-file-hosting-comparison-review phishing and other cyberattacks that target high-profile individuals, like directors and C-level executives.
It is critical to train your board members on the importance of using cybersecurity best practices. This should include an examination of the information that they share on unsecure channels such as meeting minutes or informal communications. In addition, it is essential to use a secure document-sharing platform that has encryption and access controls to keep documents from being downloaded or copied by outside parties, such as the ones that were discovered in a cyberattack.